RABBIT NINJA

A young bunny thinks life would be
better as a ninja.

Real life is so dull. One has to get
up, rush through breakfast, get to school on time, and endure long days inside.
Recess offers relief, but only because that’s when the little bunny can play at
ninjas with friends. It’s not all bad: Walking home from school with dad is
nice, and “radish nights” make eating everything on the plate a pleasure. But
bedtime? Ninjas don’t mess with bedtime—there are always “enemies to defeat.”
Though the trim size is that of a conventional picture book, Williams’
watercolors recall Beatrix Potter’s with their lovingly anthropomorphic
details. Double-page spreads juxtapose the young narrator’s real life against
the far superior life of a ninja rabbit, such kid-friendly details as a Carrot
Clusters cereal box and a rumpled tablecloth contrasting amusingly with the
vision of the serene ninja munching noodles with disciplined concentration, a
katana in the foreground. One spread of the bunny on the floor intently reading
ninja reference material both perfectly captures the child autodidact at work
and transmits some ninja factoids. But even though life as a ninja is
objectively better than real life, real life does offer compensations, like
those walks home with dad and, when a dream of fighting a katana-wielding
red-eyed rabbit villain gets a little too intense, a mother’s comforting
presence.

Adorable. (Picture book. 4-8)