Tag Claudia Rueda

Hungry Bunny

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Hungry Bunny
Claudia Rueda
Chronicle Books

We first met Bunny on the ski slopes and now the cute little rabbit returns with a very rumbly tummy. However, there’s a snag: the yummy-looking rosy apples hanging ready to sate that hunger are out of reach.
This is where readers can help, first by shaking the book to try and dislodge said fruit; then blowing on the page to unwrap Bunny’s leafy wraparound.

Oops! Yes that works but the sudden breeze causes our friend’s scarf to blow up into the tree just above grabbing height.

Ah-ha! Bunny has a plan. If we carefully position the ribbon inserted in the page, it becomes a climbing rope: clever thinking Bunny.

Now you can sit on the branch and throw juicy apples into the strategically placed cart. Then yes, we’ll surely grab the scarf once more and hold it tight while you slide down.

If readers were thinking that’s all the assistance Bunny requires, well it’s not.
There’s some book-tilting required to get the cart rolling down the hill; a bit of playful rocking it back and forth.

Yippee! That launches cart and Bunny skywards for a spot of aerobatics –

great fun, but out come all the apples.

No matter; life’s full of thrills and spills and that ribbon comes in useful again – this time as a means of crossing a gorge.

Is Mum bunny ever going to get those apples to make a deliciously tasty pie? What do you think?

There’s a delicious autumnal feel to this slice of life Bunny-style: outlined in charcoal, there are the rosy apples of course, the cart has a pinkish hue and certain imperatives are printed in matching red, and both the background, Bunny’s jacket and other items are rendered in yellowish tones.

To add to the appetising nature of the telling, our rabbit friend has dropped some choice idiomatic phrases into the narration, ‘I upset the apple cart’ being one.

Very effective as an interactive tale, and enormous fun to share.

A Dot in the Snow / Bunny Slopes

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A Dot in the Snow
Corrine Averiss and Fiona Woodcock
Oxford University Press
Polar bear cub Miki would much rather play with his mother in the soft snow than fish in the icy Arctic waters. Off he goes up the ridge presumably in search of a playmate. That’s when he sees it – a red dot in the snow. Then from out of the blizzard emerges a figure – one that looks, smells and sounds friendly.

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And, joy of joys, it wants to play  at first anyway…

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Suddenly though, the dot isn’t so smiley and playful; something has gone missing. One of the child’s mittens: can Miki rescue it and save the day? He can; the ice breaks, the two continue playing; more snow falls blotting out almost everything. Two infants bid each other farewell, return to their respective mothers and doubtless each will have much to talk about.
Gorgeous texturing in the illustrations and a suitably spare text combine to create a warm-hearted wintry read with themes of friendship, determination and parental love, albeit with a bit of stereotyping. Snuggle and share.

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Bunny Slopes
Claudia Rueda
Chronicle Books
Following in the footsteps of Hervé Tullet (Press Here, The Dot), Claudia Rueda has created a metabook with a wintry theme – a wintry theme that is, if readers play along. Bunny is ready for a ski day and invites us to join him; but snow is decidedly lacking. Readers have to create it by shaking the book – hard. Oops!

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Then tap the top of the book to extricate Bunny but that ground looks rather flat. The book needs a right tilt to set our would-be skier in motion, and again. Yeah! He’s off … but all of a sudden …

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(ingenious precipice-gutter moment). A  hasty 180 degree book turn and a page flip will, sort things. Now what?
More manipulating will see a battered Bunny up on his skis again and ready for another run at that cliff. Whoppee! He’s made it right to the opposite side but can he clear that hole? Phew! Just about, but surely not another one; the little fellow’s getting just a tad too big for his boots now but there he goes again …

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Fortunately this leap leads to his very own den where Mummy Bunny is ready and waiting with a warming treat …
Love those rabbitty expressions and the minimal colour palette: with its simple text this is a good bet for those in the early stages of reading as well as individual listeners and book manipulators.