Author: Diana Kizlauskas
Publisher: Diana Kizlauskas Illustration
Rating: WORTHY!
As I mentioned for the other review I posted today, some children's authors unfortunately feel that young children are an easy mark and not worth much time, and the path to success is via a series of cheap illustrations and a silly rhyme, and you're in business. This author/illustrator isn't one of those, I'm thrilled to report!
I've been lucky with the children's books I've reviewed, and I've found very few of them to be sub-standard, but I get to chose which ones I review, so I have an advantage! I try to review these books positively if I can because while children don't deserve less than adults, they are, bless their little cotton socks, far less critical and are willing (as I am in fact), to forgo excellence and finery if they can get a great story and/or some engrossing art work, and especially so if it's educational. This is one reason why I was so thrilled with the two books I'm reviewing today, because both of them are really, really excellent. On the other hand, it is Friday, so maybe I'm just in a thoroughly good mood. Naw, these books are great any day of the week!
This particular one has remarkable art work by the author, to which the sample images on my blog certainly do not do justice. It's the story of rabbit and his lettuce farm. He plants his seeds as usual, but the lettuce gets out of control. These things are humongous. They've lagomorphed to giant size. Rabbit doesn't have a clue what to do.
The author tells us what he does do in delightfully well-written rhymes. All of his friends come over and each of them has a suggestion, all of which advocate maximizing rabbit's fun and/or profitability. None of these weird and wacky ideas helps rabbit make up his mind at all. And yes, I'm giving him the male gender, but so is the author. Why this female author went haring off after a male farmer instead of a female, I don't know! It's enough to make you stamp your hind limbs!
Rabbit veg's out thinking hard, but he can't decide and calls up his sick friend owl, who does nothing but rabbit on about how sick he is, so while it was nice not to have the clichéd wise old owl here, this does give rabbit a brilliant idea of how to maximize value in a lettuce faire economy! I recommend this for the rhymes, the story, the good feeling this book delivers, and the beautiful art work. Buy it and burrow into it! You can't Pika better book!
