Review - Kunoichi Bunny

Kunoichi Bunny
by Sara Cassidy
illustrated by Brayden Sato
Date: 2022
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 20
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

The sun is out and the birds are chirping. It’s a beautiful day for Saya, her dad and her well-loved stuffed bunny, Kunoichi, to go to the park.

On their way, Saya stealthily stops a fight by flinging her floppy four-legged ninja-bunny between two snarling cats. Later, on the bus, Saya throws Kunoichi under the wheels of a child’s stroller, halting its dangerous roll toward the stairs. Dad doesn't notice as Saya uses Kunoichi to save the day time and time again on their outing and on the bus home, proving small actions can have a great impact.

This wordless picture book in graphic novel format by award-winning author Sara Cassidy and illustrator Brayden Sato will bring joy to every reader who believes in the magic of stuffed animals.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this one.

The premise is fine. The illustrations are well done, for the most part. I guess I'm just struggling with the fact that this is aimed at kids 3-5. Without words, will children of that age understand all of the scenarios where Saya and Kunoichi save the day? Some of them are a little hard to catch. In one panel, the bunny is thrown into the path of a baseball that's supposedly about to hit a child in the head. (The trajectory, though, makes it look like the ball would sail right over the kid's head, so that might confuse some kids who pick up on what's going on there.) There's also a panel where the bunny saves an old lady from sadness, which seems a bit of a vague concept for a preschooler to grasp.

If a parent is willing to sit down with the child and make up a little story to go along with the panels, this might work. I'm just not sure if a 3-year-old sitting there looking at the book themselves will understand what it's supposed to be about.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orca Book Publishers for providing a digital ARC.

Premise: 3/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: n/a
Illustrations: 4/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall: 3.2 out of 5

Review - The Moon Is a Silver Pond

The Moon Is a Silver Pond
by Sara Cassidy
illustrated by Josée Bisaillon
Date: 2019
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 24
Format: e-book
Source: library

A young child skates, bakes and milks the cow while the moon wondrously transforms above. The moon is a silver pond when seen through the trees. When they tend the cow, the moon is the milk at the bottom of the pail.

With stunning illustrations by Josée Bisaillon, this simple board book shows children that the way they see the world--by heart, mind and imagination--is just right. Reveling in metaphor, The Moon Is a Silver Pond encourages that magical leap of imagination and asks the reader to look at everyday objects from a different perspective.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I read The Sun Is a Peach earlier this year. The Moon Is a Silver Pond suffers from the same problems as its sequel: the metaphors are a real stretch.

I'm sorry, but I don't think of the moon when I see a tooth, a snail, or a pillow. I'm not quite sure who would. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the comparisons. It's not always shape. It's not always colour. You might as well say the moon is a phone or a diaper.

I enjoyed some of the illustrations, which are done in a mixed-media style. But since they accompany some of the most stretched metaphors I've ever seen, that dampened my enjoyment somewhat.

Premise: 2/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 2/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2.33 out of 5

Review - The Sun Is a Peach

The Sun Is a Peach
by Sara Cassidy
illustrated by Josée Bisaillon
Date: 2020
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 24
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

A young child walks along a country road into town where there's a parade on. The experiences of the day, and the child's eventual homecoming and bedtime, are chronicled and compared to the sun. The sun takes the form of the yolk of an egg, a spool of thread, the eye of a bird, an ice-cream cone and a dandelion. Each round, yellow item on the page hints at the big golden ball in the sky.

Stunning illustrations by Josée Bisaillon capture how imagination shapes the environment around us. This simple board book shows children that the way they see the world--by heart, mind and imagination--is just right. Revelling in metaphor, The Sun is a Peach encourages that magical leap of imagination and asks the reader to look at everyday objects from a different perspective.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I requested this board book from NetGalley because I enjoy the work of illustrator Josée Bisaillon. The Sun Is a Peach has a good premise. Unfortunately, the execution is quite lacking.

The book basically offers illustrated metaphors that compare various objects to the sun. The sun is a peach, an egg yolk, a blackbird's eye, a coin... Given that this is a board book, however, I expected that all of these objects would be easily comparable to the sun. This is supposed to be an introduction to metaphors, after all. But the sun is compared to a spool of yellow thread, a bee sting, a cheese pizza, time (what?), and an open book (what?!). I'm sure I could come up with ways that these things could all be compared to the sun, but I'm not three years old and I already know my way around a metaphor. Are little kids going to grasp these metaphors when the comparisons are so ambiguous?

From an aesthetic perspective, the illustrations are lovely. The colour palette is appealing and the pictures highlight the words. But in a book like this, the illustrations need to be a lot more clear so that they convey the concept. If the spool of yellow thread had been drawn looking at it from one end (so that it was a circle), it would have been easier to compare it with the sun. If the cheese pizza had had more than a few pieces of mozzarella on a bed of tomato sauce, the link with the sun might have been more clear.

While I appreciate what this book was trying to do, and I really have no problem with the overall concept, I thought that the execution was lacking. A book about metaphors for older children might be able to get away with comparing that big yellow ball in the sky with abstract concepts like time or an open book, but when it expects toddlers to "get it", it's kind of missed the mark.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orca Book Publishers for providing a digital ARC.

Premise: 3/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 2/5
Illustrations: 2/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2.33 out of 5