This charming book tells the basic story of a friendship. A Caldecott Medal winner, the book is charming, witty and lively. I read this story for the first time to my 5 year old daughter. She laughed as the silly rabbit tried hard to show his friend mouse that he was helpful. She loved tracing the patterns of the illustrations that lined the pages, following the cause and effect of what happens when rabbit tries to help mouse get his toy plane out of a tree. As an adult, I found this book easy to relate to the good intentions of close friends, who sometimes end up causing more trouble when trying to help. I think the basic theme is one that most all people can identify with. We all have moments where our good intentions cause mishap or even mayhem. However, at the end of the day, as was in the case of this story, friendship is about understanding and forgiveness as well as seeing into the heart and soul of others to recognize their good deeds.
As a teacher, I think this is an excellent book to illustrate the theme of cause and effect. This is often a difficult concept for primary children to grasp and the cause and effect relationship displayed in this book provides a great illustration of this concept. The pictures were clear, crisp and inviting. My 5 year old was enveloped in looking at the pictures and seeing the expressions on the animals faces throughout the story. This is a great book to read again and again with little ones.
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