My Friend Rabbit
By: Eric Rohmann
My Friend Rabbit is an amazing beginner reader book. It doesn’t have many words and the pictures are phenomenal. Rohmann has an amazing ability to tell the story with his pictures. Half of the book doesn’t even have words in it. He will begin a phrase with words and then let the reader finish it off in his head by looking at the pictures. This book talks about a friendship that can’t be ruined no matter what crazy things that someone does. This is a great message to send out to kids because they want to know that their friendships are things that are going to last.
The story has two main characters: Rabbit and Mouse. It begins with Rabbit helping Mouse fly in his airplane. But misfortune strikes and Rabbit gets the plane stuck in the tree. Mouse was warning the readers about such things happening when Rabbit is around. “My friend Rabbit means well. But whatever he does, wherever he goes, trouble follows.” Mouse says this right at the beginning of the book. It is something that the author wants the reader to think about as the book goes on. So when Mouse and Rabbit look at the plane in the tree, Rabbit gets a brilliant idea and begins to collect animals from all over the place. He brings an elephant, a rhinoceros, a hippopotamus, an antelope, an alligator, a bear, some ducks, and a squirrel. Rabbit then proceeds to stack these animals on top of one another until the plane is almost in reach. Then just as mouse gets to the plane, the entire stack of animals falls over. Then Mouse saves his friend from the angry mob of animals and they fly away… at least until Rabbit covers Mouse’s eyes and they get stuck right back in the tree. And Rabbit gets another idea... But the author never reveals what it is.
I believe that this book connects to the chapter because it is a picture book. It may be the book that teachers would choose for their students to read, but the students that love to look at pictures would love this book. The student has to pick his own book to read if the teacher or parent wants him to become a literate reader. Not just someone who can read, but someone who likes to read. On page 49 of the book, the author talks about his son who wanted to learn about Thomas Jefferson. The father helped him find books and then encouraged him to continue reading by listening to what his son had learned. This is a good example of how I think My Friend Rabbit fits into the chapter. With the Thomas Jefferson case, the student picked a book that was out of his skill level, but because he wanted to read it, he did. With My Friend Rabbit, a student might pick it because of the pictures, but then fall in love with the story and then read other things by that same author. It is just about letting the student pick his own reading material.
I know I'm not very good with grammar and the usage of words, but I did notice a couple of spots with errors. In the introduction you say, "It doesn't many words", which should be It doesn't have many words.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say, "he brings and elephant", it should be an elephant. The last one I caught was when you said "read other things that same author", which should be something such as, read other things by that same author.
You had a good description of the book. Just reading the title I actually didn't know the book, but after you described it I remember reading the book before.
I do think that it helps children understand that sometimes friendships are going to go through hard times, but you have to stick through the tough times to keep the good times coming.
Is that how the book ended with simply the covering of the eyes and ending up in the tree? It doesn't sound like they came to a conclusion with the book and we are kind of left in mystery as if they still stayed friends or not.
surprisingly yes. that is how the boo ends. Rabbit says that he has another idea and the book leaves the reader on a cliff. But that could then stem into a project for the class. The teacher could have them draw a picture of how Rabbit plans on getting them down. Thanks for the sentence fixing stuff. I guess I did a pretty bad job at proof reading.
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