Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Artist: Clement Hurd
Genre: Family / Imagination / Adventure / Love
Year Published: 1942
Year Read: 2017
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Series: Over the Moon #1
Source: Library
Content Rating: Ages 4+ (Some Themes of Stalking, although it depends on the reader)
Buy on: Amazon // Book Depository
After I had read Margaret
Wise Brown’s popular children’s book “Goodnight
Moon,” I wanted to read more of Margaret
Wise Brown’s works and I happened to stumbled upon another one of her
popular works called “The Runaway
Bunny,” along with artwork by Clement
Hurd. “The Runaway Bunny” is a truly cute story
about the love shared between a parent and child that children will enjoy!
The story starts off with a little bunny wanting to
run away from home and when he told his mother about it, his mother just said
that she will come running after him, no matter where the little bunny will run
off to!
I must admit that I cannot believe that I waited this
long to read this classic children’s story about a love shared between a parent
and a child! Margaret Wise Brown had done a great job at conveying a mother
bunny’s devotion to her child as she is always pledging to follow her child to
the ends of the earth, whether the bunny wants to become a rock on a mountain
or a sailboat to escape from his mother.
I also enjoyed the soothing tone of this book as the story never felt
too chaotic or intense when dealing with the little bunny’s desire to run away
and I always felt good when the mother bunny tries to comfort her child by
telling him that she will always love him no matter what. Clement
Hurd’s artwork is truly gorgeous and creative to look at, especially when there
are transitions between the black and white artwork and the colorful
artwork. I loved the fact that the
scenes where we get to see the imaginations of the little bunny running away
from home in different and unique ways, is displayed in color as they make the
situations stand out much more. My
favorite image in the book would be the image of the mother bunny posing as the
wind and blowing her child, who is a sailboat at this point, towards the
destination she desires.
The reason why I took off half a point from the rating
was because even though the book is showing that the mother bunny truly does
care for her child by following him to the ends of the earth whenever the
little bunny runs away, I cannot help but feel like the mother bunny’s behavior
comes off as a bit like a stalker as she would chase her child no matter where
he goes. Just like Robert Munsch’s children’s book “Love You Forever,” while it is cute that the mother bunny cares
enough for her child to chase him down across the earth, the whole “the mother
bunny is going to catch her son no matter what” theme might be unsettling for
some readers to handle.
Overall, “The
Runaway Bunny” is a cute story about the power of love shared between a
parent and their child that many children will enjoy for many years! I would recommend this book to children ages
four and up, even though the stalker implications of the mother bunny might unsettle
some readers.
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I used to read this with my son and he loved it. Thanks for sharing your review. :)
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