A little bunny keeps runningaway from his mother in an imaginative and imaginary game of verbal hide-and-seek; children will be profoundly comforted by this lovingly steadfast mother who finds her child every time.
The Runaway Bunny, first published in 1942 and never out of print, has indeed become a classic. Generations of readers have fallen in love with the gentle magic of its reassuring words and loving pictures.
The Runaway Bunny is touching book about wanting to be independent, a mother's love, and being happy with who you are. The pictures are hand-drawn and alter between small black-and-white drawings and much larger colored drawings. Words are only found on the black-and-white pages, so they are easier to focus on. The colored pages are for letting your imagination go, as they depict what the little bunny and his mother are imagining together. There is repetition in the dialogue between the little bunny and his mother to help encourage understanding and some memorization.
The drawings depict many objects your child will likely recognize and can identify while you read. However, the pictures also show new creative things that will spark your child's interest and imagination, such as the little bunny turning in to a sail boat and using his ears for sails, or the little bunny's mother turning into a bunny-shaped tree! This book is a great catalyst for a conversation with your child about how you love them like the little bunny's mother loves him, and - just like the little bunny - your child is perfect being just who they are.
When my friend reads this to her four-year-old girl, Taylor, she says Taylor will usually sit through the entire book without a peep, lost in the pictures. When the book is through, Taylor sometimes likes to ask her mom if she would chase her around the world, just like the little bunny's mom. My friend said it is fun to make up all the places and ways she would chase after Taylor because she loves her just as much as the bunny in the book.
--Audra