How Jackrabbit Got His Very Long Ears

May 24, 1999
Irbinskas's first picture book, a Southwestern ``just so'' approach to the traits of several desert animals, seems dated: the lessons are spelled out, the story is surpriseless and the overblown, poster-like illustrations show ``real'' animals with human expressions and feelings. A benevolent, bearded, cloud-figure Great Spirit lends an ersatz Native American tone, altogether false to the regional Native religious sense of a pervasive animistic spirit. Following a lengthy cosmogony, Great Spirit creates Jackrabbit to lead other new animals to their homes. Predictably, Jackrabbit doesn't listen up and delivers erroneous, negative messages to Tortoise, Bobcat and Roadrunner (the latter, for example, is told that he doesn't have wings like an eagle's because he's a less important creature). Great Spirit steps in to point out to each animal the survival value of his perceived shortcoming, then kindly supplies Jackrabbit with longer ears. The author intrudes at the end to say that ``if you try to sneak up on a jackrabbit, you'll find he has very good hearing indeed!'' Ages 5-up.

June 1, 1994
Ages 5-8. When the Great Spirit creates the desert and the creatures who will live there, he designates the jackrabbit to guide the animals to their new homes and explain their special adaptations, which make them well suited to their environment. The flightly rabbit doesn't listen well, though, and when Tortoise asks why he's so slow, Jackrabbit hems and haws and finally makes up a disconcerting answer: "Because you're not as smart as I am." He also saddens Roadrunner and Bobcat with his fabricated answers to their questions, until the Great Spirit realizes what's happening and gives Jackrabbit a new adaptation of his own: big ears to help him listen better to what he's told. This original "pourquoi" story has the flavor of a folktale and reads aloud well. Full of energy and strong on characterization, the lively paintings will project the story back to the last row of the classroom or story hour. ((Reviewed June 1994))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1994, American Library Association.)