Blog Entry #9 My Friend Rabbit

My Friend Rabbit

Written and Illustrated by Eric Rohmann
Scholastic Incorporated
2002
30 pages

Fantasy

            I chose this book because my parents gave it to me when I was 12 years old for Christmas. My mom has a tradition of buying my sister and me the Caldecot winners every year for Christmas. This book is about Mouse who has a friend Rabbit. Rabbit means well but always seems to get Mouse in a pickle. Rabbit just wants to help people but more often than not he just gets the people he tries to help into an even stickier situation. Mouse’s airplane gets stuck in a tree, and Rabbit hatches a plan to get it out of the tree. He gathers all of the animals to help him in his plan. One by one Rabbit gets the animals to climb onto one another until at last they stretch far enough for Mouse to climb to the very top and reach the airplane. However, before Mouse can get his airplane, the towering pile of animals crashes to the ground. All of the animals are furious at Rabbit. Before the animals get the chance to show Rabbit how mad, Mouse swoops down and saves Rabbit on his airplane. He is, after all, his friend, and he means well.

            This book’s illustrations look like a mixture between computer-generated patterns and acrylic paint. The characters and objects have thick black outlines and deep, rich colors. More than half of the book is pictures of Rabbit pulling various animals into the “shot” of the page. Emphasis is put on the towering pile of animals by using two pages to fill up the visual space so that readers must turn the book sideways to view the picture. The deliberate lines, color distinction, and contrast between foreground and background reflect the determination and steadfastness of Rabbit.

            This book is a great character education book about thoughtfulness. It teaches students to stand by their friends and help them in times of need. Even though Rabbit tried to help his friend Mouse in his time of need his stubbornness and insistence ended up not helping Mouse. Instead, Mouse’s behavior acts as a model for students to be true to their friends even when no one else is. This could also be used in younger grades for math lessons for counting and science lessons for identifying different animals. Students could also use cut-out manipulatives to order the animals from largest to smallest.

This book was the winner of the Caldecot Medal.

For fun interactive games and more information about My Friend Rabbit click on the title in this sentence.