Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 12/01/2009 Hoppi, a small but industrious bunny, takes a tour of the woods and sees how other rabbits are preparing fancily decorated eggs in the hopes of being chosen to assist the official Easter Rabbit. He collects ideas, tools, and accoutrements from the artistic—and obviously older—bunnies, including flowers, paints, wood to carve, and chocolate. As soon as he decides that he will need to limit his own production to match his capabilities, he suddenly becomes the foster parent to a fallen robin’s egg. Brett’s large watercolors include a few visual puns (one rabbit is painting a silhouette of Lewis Carroll’s March Hare on an egg, for instance) and lots of woodland detail. The story of the robins and their fallen egg unfolds in the top border of the page spreads. A satisfying, gentle tale whose text and images can be enjoyed multiple times over. - Copyright 2009 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 02/01/2010 K-Gr 2— A bunny hopes he will win the Easter egg decorating contest and thus gain the honor of helping the Easter Rabbit hide the eggs on Easter morning. The other rabbits in his neighborhood are busy working on their entries, each one more dazzling than the last, and Hoppi needs an inspiration. At last, he decides that the most important thing is to make something he will be proud of. He hops off into the woods, where he finds a robin's fallen egg. The bunny generously offers to guard it while the mother tends to the eggs remaining in her nest. On the contest day, the Easter Rabbit commends the crowd of rabbits for their beautiful creations, but then says "a very special one is not here." He hurries off into the woods to bring Hoppi back to the glen, where he reveals that Hoppi has won the contest for his heroic efforts in protecting the egg. Brett's elegant watercolor and gouache illustrations enhance this sweet story. Adorned with wreaths of flowers and decorative borders, the paintings bring to mind the romance of Victorian greeting cards. Each character is depicted as a distinctive breed of rabbit. The lovely pastel shades and lush pastoral details in the illustrations celebrate the beauty of spring. This book could be paired with Michael Garland's The Great Easter Egg Hunt (Dutton 2005).—Linda L. Walkins, Mount Saint Joseph Academy, Brighton, MA - Copyright 2010 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 03/01/2010 “Each year, the bunny who decorated the winning egg got to help the Easter Rabbit hide the eggs on Easter morning,” and Hoppi the rabbit wants to be that bunny assistant. Unfortunately, he’s bereft of decorative ideas, and observing other artistic rabbits merely daunts him. Then an unhatched robin’s egg falls from a nest high above, and Hoppi steps in, Horton-like, to keep the fallen egg warm as the mother robin sits on the remaining eggs in her nest. When the Easter Bunny arrives for the judging of the eggs, he awards the prize to Hoppi’s blue egg, now cracked after its well-tended inhabitant’s departure. Brett’s story offers substance to the somewhat slim mythology on the world of the Easter Bunny, and little listeners will likely rally around the details of the rabbit kingdom. The book’s trajectory is somewhat impaired, however, by its wavering objective: while Hoppi clearly states that his intent is to create something all his own, his final victory, while certainly indicative of his valor, is not at all related to personal creativity. Adults will also need to direct young audiences to the visuals to get the full story, as the little robin’s hatching (into a biologically implausible fully fledged bird) is only depicted in illustrative vignettes, not in the text. Brett’s signature framing style and intricate compositions incorporate woodsy spring flowers and branches of pussy willows; observant readers will note that the pussy willows grow over the course of the story, ultimately (and inexplicably) yielding furry white bunny rabbits where the soft white buds would be. Despite the muddiness of the message, there are lots of springtime themes to explore here, and the generous helpings of softly furry bunnies will certainly appeal to fans of the small and fuzzy. HM - Copyright 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Loading...