Bunny School
Bunny School takes the reader through a full school day with a classroom full of cute little rabbits. The story is written in rhyming verse, so it's a lot of fun to read and it has a nice 'beat'. The rhyming is very nicely done. The story does not feature one single main character, rather, the story takes you through all of the activities that the bunnies do together as a class. I like the way the story is told. It could have come off as a little chilly and impersonal because there is no main protagonist. But to the contrary, the artwork adds such expressiveness to the charaters and imbues each with individual personality that you feel like you are following each individual bunny's progress throughout their day.
The art appears to be done in colored pencil and watercolor, and proves to be a great marriage of the two. Another thing I like about the art is how the bunnies features and bodies are really truly bunny-like, but they still have a sense of whimsy and fantasy about them. The illustrations also take up the ENTIRE spread on each page, save for the overlaid curved-edged box containing each spreads' text. So many books these days have designs that intermingle the art and the text. While I enjoy these types of books, for my money there's nothing like a good ol', old-school, full-page color picture book done in a classic style once in awhile, and Bunny School delivers this.
The compositions themselves are also really interesting and well thought out. They are easy on the eyes but they are decepitvely complex in design. I am sure it was a lot of work to make them look this interesting, but all the viewer sees is a fun illustration that is endlessly interesting but they're not exactly sure why.
Most of the spreads have many characters, and often, they are engaged in various independent activities. It's fun to see what each of the individual characters are doing on each page against each page's story text. This adds a lot to the story and it is so much fun to find new things to look at each time I look at a spread.
The book Bunny School is not really well known at all, but it is one of my favorites in my collection. It's just a total comfort read for me.
3 comments:
Looked at some of the interiors on Amazon. You're right Kathy! A beautifully done book.
Thank you so very very much for your interest and great review of Bunny School! I loved working on all of the books with Rick Walton, and Bunny School was one of my favorites. Both of my kids were either in or graduated from Pre-K/Kindergarten, so I had a lot of reference in my head. Richard Scarry was one of my favs growing up, and I like to think there's some of his detail, whimsy and chararacter in there.
Kath, this looks like another adorable book I'll have to add to my ever growing list. Thanks for the great review.
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