Rabbit & Squirrel: A Tale of War & Peas

by Kara LaReau

Book Overview

Rabbit loves her garden. Squirrel loves his. But then their delicious vegetables begin disappearing. And they have only each other to blame . . . or do they? Well, Rabbit and Squirrel don't pause to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0152063072
• ISBN13: 9780152063078
• Release Date: May 2008
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 9.3" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 4 to 7 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 2

Customer Reviews

Three Silly Chicks Review

Once upon a time, there was a lovely, fluffy pink and sparkly book about a happy rabbit named Rabbit and her best friend, Squirrel. This is NOT that book. THANK GOODNESS! We Chicks love sweet fluffiness in our cupcakes. We do NOT love sweet fluffiness pressed between the covers of a book. It makes the pages stick together and that makes us cranky. We love books that tell us a good story in a funny, smart, and slightly mischievous way. Rabbit & Squirrel: A Tale of War and Peas is such a book. This new title is brought to us by Kara LaReau and Scott Magoon who recently collaborated on the wickedly dry underwater saga, Ugly Fish. This is no corny tale of competition between friends. Rabbit and Squirrel are not friends. They are neighbors who barely notice each other until someone starts raiding their gardens. They jump to bad conclusions, blaming each other for the destruction. It is war! Even when the true culprit is revealed, Rabbit and Squirrel can't let it go. They just don't know when to say when. Where will it end? (Sorry. You have to read the book to find out.) LaReau's smart text is perfectly balanced with Magoon's nuanced illustrations which reveal Rabbit's and Squirrel's surprising breadth of emotion. If you've ever wondered what a vengeful rabbit or a suspicious squirrel might look like, this is the book for you. (If you haven't wondered that, what have you been doing with your spare time?) Rabbit & Squirrel is no garden variety morality tale. It is a simple story that makes a big point without ever getting preachy or gooey. Exactly what we like to find between the covers of a book!

Visualize whirled peas / Give peas a chance / Take my rabbit.... pease! [they're all bad, but I coul

I think that it's fair to say that rabbits in gardens have certainly gotten their picture book due. Whether it's Peter Rabbit escaping a sieve, a little Tops & Bottoms action, or even those Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! bunnies clicking their heels, kids have no difficulty associating rabbits with garden woes. Squirrels, on the other hand, don't get the proper amount of attention they're warranted. Man, when I was growing up rabbits were somewhat bad but squirrels? Squirrels were worse. Your apple trees and strawberry plants wouldn't yield BUPKISS when a squirrel was around. Credit author Kara LaReau for acknowledging that squirrels deserve to be classified as garden pests. Her book Rabbit and Squirrel teams her up with Ugly Fish partner-in-crime Scott Magoon and together they've come up with a book that deserves to appear amongst your garden storytime readaloud staples. Though it indulges the pair's taste for unexpected endings, this one's definitely their best product yet. Once there was a rabbit (named Rabbit) and a squirrel (named Squirrel, naturally) that each tended delicious gardens. One day the Rabbit woke up to find her goodies plundered, so naturally she blamed (and threatened) the Squirrel. The next day the Squirrel found HIS goodies gone so he blamed (and threatened) the Rabbit back. Soon the Rabbit was taking the Squirrel's peas and tomatoes and the Squirrel was turning his hose onto the insides of the Rabbit's house when in the midst of their squabble was a gigantic human gardener, demanding to know who was ruining her garden! Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed human hands plucking the veggies throughout the tale, after all. Chased away from their homes, Rabbit and Squirrel high tail it to the woods where they continue to bicker. "One of these days, they'll grow tired of fighting. And then, hopefully, they'll learn to grow something new." I'll level with you here. Did you ever read the previous LaReau/Magoon pairing Ugly Fish? I just wasn't a fan. Magoon has an elastic style that was too thin-lined and shaky for me with that book. Rabbit and Squirrel is different. Now the lines are thicker and the colors dark and rich. What's more, LaReau has taken her penchant for unusual storytelling and fitted it to "war and peas". And you could probably apply this story directly to some historical incident if you were so inclined (as I've no doubt some high school history teacher will soon do). It would have to be a situation in which two groups went to war when their troubles really sprang from a malevolent third party. Think about it, won't you? Let's go back to Scott Magoon's art, though. I have to say that for a guy who does his work "digitally" he's got the panache of the hand-illustrated-only types. There are some textures in this book that I was particularly taken with. The pages sometimes have the visual consistency of some kind of woven material. Burlap, maybe? It's hard to say. Then on top of this you'll get a variety of patterns, of