Little Blue Bunny

February 1, 2022
A plush toy rabbit bonds with a boy and watches him grow into adulthood. The boy receives the blue bunny for his birthday and immediately becomes attached to it. Unbeknownst to him, the ungendered bunny is sentient; it engages in dialogue with fellow toys, giving readers insight into its thoughts. The bunny's goal is to have grand adventures when the boy grows up and no longer needs its company. The boy spends many years playing imaginatively with the bunny, holding it close during both joyous and sorrowful times and taking it along on family trips. As a young man, he marries, starts a family, and hands over the beloved toy to his toddler-aged child in a crib. The bunny's epiphany--that he does not need to wait for great adventures since all his dreams have already come true in the boy's company--is explicitly stated in the lengthy text, which is in many ways similar to The Velveteen Rabbit (1922). The illustrations, which look hand-painted but were digitally created, are moderately sentimental with an impressionistic dreaminess (one illustration even includes a bunny-shaped cloud in the sky) and a warm glow throughout. The depiction of a teenage male openly displaying his emotions--hugging his beloved childhood toy for example--is refreshing. All human characters present as White expect for one of the boy's friends who is Black. A sweet, if oft-told, story. (Picture book. 4-8)

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March 1, 2022

PreS-K-Like Henry Cole's One Little Bag, in which a seemingly single-use object lasts for generations, this is a tale of upended expectations. A small boy gets a floppy, plush, pink-nosed blue bunny. Blue Bunny knows that his job is to befriend the boy now, but if the boy one day outgrows him, the stuffed toy wants to do great big things out in the world: travel, sleep under the stars, see sights. With the boy, he does all those things. One day he realizes that "all of [his] dreams have come true." The adolescent boy becomes a married man, and Blue Bunny has a new baby and new adventures to look forward to. The skillful pastel illustrations are fuzzy-edged and just as sweet as the story. In this "magical world," mostly cast with a white family, there are no annoyances, and the bunny's scaled-down life is fulfilling. VERDICT Heartwarming is the aim; some readers will find the overt message and warm presentation cloying, others comforting.-Patricia D. Lothrop

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