I occasionally review children’s books, and I especially enjoy ones with beautiful illustrations. I have also reread a few classics and found some of them just as enjoyable for an adult as for myself as a child. I received this book for Christmas a few years ago, and it has taken this long to work its way to the top of my pile.
First, let me say that although this book is self-published, it is expensively produced in hardback with lots of colored pictures. The pictures are beautiful, and the book is attractive. J. W. Julian wrote and illustrated it, and she is certainly a good children’s book artist.
Ebby is a baby bunny who discovers she is a rare thing—an Elusive Baby Bunny who is destined to travel widely and do wonderful things instead of staying home, like most baby bunnies. With almost no further ado, she sets off on her travels and begins to do wonderful things, mostly to make friends, it seems.
My first impression had to do with the book’s audience. It is advertised for middle grades, but its tone and subject matter seem more appropriate for younger children—to be read to. Frankly, it is precious, in the too sweet meaning of the word.
I wanted to try to finish this book, but I stopped reading at about page 50. For one thing, the writing is only workmanlike—grammatical but not very interesting. And the pacing, especially for a children’s book, is very slow. Julian seems to have adopted very simple sentence structure for early readers, but the book doesn’t read like a well-written children’s book. It is too choppy. Opportunities are missed. For example, Ebby goes to a village for the first time, but instead of describing it like someone would who has never seen a village before, it is described like someone would who is familiar with villages but immediately picks out what is different—that the houses have water wheels. Having never seen a village, how would Ebby know that was unusual?
I wanted to read this book, but reading it was tedious, and I felt that children as old as 10 would be used to plots that zipped along. Little kids might find it cute, though (I know a bunny on the cover of a book was enough for me to want to read it when I was five), and parents could then find an opportunity to discuss some of the vocabulary.
What? Me Read? 