________________ CM . . . . Volume V Number 3 . . . . October 2, 1998

cover The Deep Blue Sky Twinkles with Stars.

Cyndy Szekeres.
New York, NY: Cartwheel Books (Distributed in Canada by Scholastic Canada), 1998.
30 pp, cloth, $17.99.
ISBN 0-590-69198-8.

Subject Headings:
Rabbits-Fiction.
Bedtime-Fiction.

Preschool - grade 2/ Ages 2 - 7.
Review by Joan Payzant.

**** /4

excerpt:

Laughing bunnies are playing hide-and-seek.
The smallest of them is called Little Bunny.
He plays close to his Mama.
She wants to gather up all of her bunnies, but they keep hopping away.
Hop,hop,hop!
Fluffy chicks scurry about as Papa catches one bunny.
image Rabbits are attractive animals to personify. These five little bunnies, their Mama and Papa, which Cyndy Szekeres has created in her charming story, are no exception. Interestingly, Papa Bunny participates largely in the tale. One illustration shows Littl e Bunny being tickled by Papa's whiskery kisses. So often, as in Beatrix Potter stories, it is mother animals which predominate.

      Other little creatures - chicks, a porcupine and mice - participate in the game of hide-and-seek, and, when it begins to get dark, they admire with the bunny family "the deep blue sky" as it "twinkles with stars."

      As the bunnies go into their house, they perform familiar bedtime rituals that small children will identify with - washing, drinking hot cocoa, hearing a lullaby, and hopping in and out of bed with flimsy excuses. At last, all seven bunnies are asleep and dreaming while outside "the deep blue sky twinkles with stars."

      Little children will love both the story and the sensitive illustrations. Szekeres has given the adorable bunnies wonderfully expressive faces. Older children will enjoy reading the book for themselves. It is well-bound, with appropriate type size, and l ovely end papers representing the night sky.

Recommended.

Joan Payzant is a former teacher and teacher-librarian in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Copyright © the Manitoba Library Association. Reproduction for personal use is permitted only if this copyright notice is maintained. Any other reproduction is prohibited without permission.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - OCTOBER 2, 1998.

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