[BOOK REVIEW] Battle Bunny (Birthday Bunny) by Jon Scieszka and Mac Barnett

Title:  Battle Bunny (Birthday Bunny)

Authors:  Jon Scieszka and Mac Barnett

Artist: Matthew Myers

Genre:  Animals / Violence / Alternative Narrative / Cute

Year Published: 2013

Year Read:  2015

Publisher:   Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 5+ (Fight Scenes)

       

After reading Jon Scieszka’s famous children’s books “The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales” and “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs,” I was really excited to check out some of Jon Scieszka’s latest works!  Lo and behold, I happened to stumble upon one of Jon Scieszka’s most recent children’s book “Battle Bunny (or Birthday Bunny),” co-written by Mac Barnett along with illustrations by Matthew Myers (along with some help from Alex) and this was a pretty interesting read!

 

Story 1: Birthday Bunny

Today is a special day for Bunny as he realizes that today is his birthday and spends most of the story going to his friends Crow, Badger, Squirrel, Turtle and Bear and telling them that today is a special day indeed! Unfortunately, all of Birthday Bunny’s friends do not seem to realize that today is his birthday and Bunny is upset over this.

Will Bunny’s friends remember his birthday?

Story 2: Battle Bunny

Today is a special day for Battle Bunny as he starts plotting to take over the world by cutting down all of the trees in the forest!  Battle Bunny meets up his enemies Crow, El Tejon the Badger Wrestler, Sergeant Squirrel of the Robot Police Force, Shaolin Bear and Ninja Turtle and he ends up beating up all of them.  It seems that no one will be able to defeat Battle Bunny and his plans of world domination until a small boy named Alex steps up to take down Battle Bunny!

Will Alex save the day?

Read this book to find out what happens in both of these stories!

 

I have actually heard about this book through one of my book friends’ reviews and as I was reading their review on this book, I was immediately interested and I went right away to my library to pick up this book!  This was probably one of the most creative picture books I had ever read as the format is quite unique from what I usually read from picture books.  I loved the way that both Jon Scieszka and Mac Barnett wrote this story as you have the story about Birthday Bunny being the actual story going on here while the story about Battle Bunny is the one that is being written over the “Birthday Bunny” story (with childlike drawings and multiple crossing out of words being shown in loving detail).  I must admit that I enjoyed the “Battle Bunny” story a bit more than the “Birthday Bunny” story because well, the “Birthday Bunny” story is your typical “main character is celebrating their birthday with their friends” plot, while the “Battle Bunny” story is full of awesome moments of Battle Bunny battling his enemies while that was the story that was being written over the “Birthday Bunny” story with childlike drawings being drawn all over the pages!  Matthew Myers’ artwork is truly creative and cute at some parts as the drawings of Birthday Bunny are drawn in a cute and realistic way while the artwork for Battle Bunny are drawn in stick figures and has militaristic accessories being drawn on the birthday bunny characters to make them all look tougher than how they are really drawn.

 

The reason why I gave this book a four star rating was because there were times where it was difficult to read through this book due to having to read two different stories going on at the same time.  Now, this is a pretty creative way to write a story, but this might be pretty hard for some children to read through, especially if they are not used to reading two different stories going on at the same time.

 

Overall, “Battle Bunny (Birthday Bunny)” is a truly creative story for both children and adults to read as it is full of comedy and action that will last for years!  I would recommend this book to children ages five and up since the writing style might confuse some children.