Module 3 - My Friend Rabbit

Module Three - My Friend Rabbit

 

Book Summary

When Mouse lets his best friend, Rabbit, play with his new airplane, he just knows there will be trouble. Rabbit means well but his ideas usually lead to chaos.  However, when Rabbit and Mouse work together, their problems fly away! Literally.

APA Reference of Book

Rohmann, E. (2002). My friend rabbit. Brookfield, CT: Roaring Brook Press. 

My Impressions

My Friend Rabbit is a simple story about friendship.  We all have friends that, like Pigpen or Eeyore, have a little cloud of trouble that billows along behind.  That doesn’t stop us from being friends; it just allows us to anticipate the chaos that follows in their wake and make the best of it.  Mouse lets Rabbit play with his toy airplane. When Rabbit flies it, the plane becomes stuck in a tree.  “Not to worry, Mouse!  I’ve got an idea!”  Rabbit’s fool-proof plan to retrieve the plane involves a menagerie of animals.  Chaos, of course, ensues. Rohmann’s drawings are darkly outlined and the colors are bold and bright.  He also employs circular lines on the outside of the animals and objects to show movement and emotion.  I heard Eric Rohmann speak at the Texas Book Festival a few years ago.  He mentioned that it always amazed him what children saw in his books that adults miss.  For example - the hippopotamus in this book is asleep throughout the entire story.  That always makes me smile!

What the Professionals Say

Mouse, the narrator who flies a red and yellow biplane, tells listeners that his friend Rabbit "means well," but that trouble always follows him. Then comes a smart, sassy object lesson on how much trouble Rabbit brings. The fun of this is in the spacing and sequencing of the heavily ink-outlined drawings. After Rabbit has thrown Mouse's beloved biplane into a tree, one full page consists of tiny Mouse staring up, ink accents marking his exasperation. On the facing page, Rabbit darts off, promising a solution. The next double-spread shows an anxious Mouse as Rabbit drags one enormous tail into view. The space fills with a massive elephant. Then Rabbit pulls in, among others, a rhino, a reindeer, and a duck (followed, of course, by ducklings). Now, the two-page spread must be turned vertically to reveal a giant pyramid of animals, topped by a squirrel holding Mouse, who reaches for the biplane--then the mass topples. Rage-filled beasts turn on Rabbit. Mouse, flying in on his recovered plane, saves Rabbit from their clutches and claws. Tremendous physical humor delivers a gentle lesson about accepting friends as they are.

Connie, F. (2002). [Review of the book My Friend Rabbit, by E. Rohmann]. Booklist, 98(18). 

My Friend Rabbit won the Caldecott Medal in 2003 and has also been on the Parents’ Choice Recommended List. It won a National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) Gold Award and was also an Oprah.com “Kids Reading List” selection.

From Eric Rohmann:

“After making two books using large two page spreads painted with oils I had the idea to try something different. I worried that I was falling into my own way of working, of becoming lazy and answering questions with the same answers. I was getting too good at making Eric Rohmann paintings. So I approached my editor, Simon Boughton, and asked him if he would be interested in a book that didn’t look like the books I’d made in the past. He said, “Get to work, and let me see.”

So I went back to a kind of artmaking I’d done in school — printmaking, deciding to make the book with hand colored relief prints—bold color and a chunky, jaunty line — to illustrate the silly story of a overly enthusiastic rabbit and his reliable friend, Mouse, who always mops up after him. This book also began with many words and as I made the images I saw that the silliness was best left to the pictures.”

Retrieved from http://www.ericrohmann.com/pages/books/bk_myfriendrab.html

A Suggestion for Use in a Library Setting

My Friend Rabbit is such a great read-aloud. It is perfect for a story time on rabbits, mice, friendship, sharing, toys, or airplanes.

It is also a great story to model spatial concepts such as “on top,” “at the bottom”, “under,” “above,” and “below,” and ordinal concepts such as first, second, third, etc. I would create flannel figures similar to the story and then have the kids help me retell the story by incorporating the figures.  I would retell the story using the flannels.  Then I would ask them to help me put the animals in order.  Did Rabbit fetch the hippo first? No - it was the elephant.  Was the duck on the bottom of the pile? No - the elephant was on the bottom. 

Using a die-cut machine, I would punch out enough animals for each child to make their own animal tower as a take home craft. They could attach their animals with glue sticks onto construction paper. Or we could make paper airplanes and use animal stickers to decorate them.