Margaret Wise Brown's the Golden Bunny

January 1, 2015

PreS-Gr 1-Out of print since the mid-1980s, this whimsical collection features short tales and poems from the great Margaret Wise Brown, complemented by lush and richly detailed illustrations by Leonard Weisgard. Though not nearly as groundbreaking or eye-popping as their 1946 collaboration on The Little Island (Doubleday), which snagged the Caldecott medal, these sweet stories of a land in which "there were nothing but bunnies" will work nicely as one-on-one or bedtime reads. The production value is high, with saturated jewel tones and an attractive cover design; this would also make a lovely gift. From Weisgard's collagelike endpapers featuring a colorful array of leaves to Brown's evocative verse ("By the dark gray river in the soft white snow/I caught a little Rabbit and let him go/Bounding deep in the deep soft snow."), this collection certainly stands the test of time.

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