May Time, Bunny Time! Too Many Bunnies by Tomie De Paola

"Well," said Daddy Hopkins, looking out on a fine spring morning, "it's time to plant our gardens."

"This year," said Mommy Hopkins, "Daddy and I want all of you children to help,"

"Oh, Goody!" cried the fifteen little Hopkins.

Mommy and Daddy need to go buy some carrot seeds, but first they give all the bunnies their assignments.

The five quintuplets, Willy, Wally, Wiley, Wendy, and Winny get spades and start to dig. The quads Bonny, Bunny, Billy, and Biff get rakes. The triplets Flossie, Frannie, and Fuffie are set to make the rows, the twins Skipper and Skeezer are assigned to plant seeds, and little Petey is sent for the hose to water the rows.

But if too many cooks spoil the broth, too many gardeners can make a mess of the garden.

When Mommy and Daddy Hopkins return with the seeds, the bunnies are all milling around, doing everything at once. It's a muddy muddle.

But Mommy knows how to manage a mob of bunnies, and soon has them working in their teams, in best-selling author-illustrator Tomie de Paola's Too Many Bunnies (Little Simon Books), in a lovable board book that explains planting and teamwork, illustrated appealingly in true de Paola spring-styled pastel watercolors. Great for planting time, share this one with Katy Hudson's inimitable Too Many Carrots (See my review here).

How Hard Can It Be? Dog and Rabbit by Barney Saltzberg

Dog didn't mind being alone. But...

...Sometimes Dog was lonely.

But sometimes a friend is nowhere to be seen. Dog's standards are not too high. He just wants a friend around.

"How hard can it be..." he wondered.

There's Rabbit, looking lonely, too, wishing for a friend.

Someone to hop with.

But it's hard to find a friend.

 Not everyone hops to the same rhythm.

Dog is not so picky. He fixes on Rabbit as a potential friend and puts a bunny figure up on the front of his fridge, and when Rabbit spots that bunny through the window, he comes back often to gaze longingly at it. He smiles at it. Dog smiles at Rabbit, but Rabbit hops swiftly away.

Things seem to be at an impasse... but then ... one day Rabbit finds Dog's door open.

Rabbit hops inside to meet the bunny, but sadly he sees it is not a real rabbit. Suddenly, Rabbit sees Dog, quietly there, smiling.

The one who had waited.

It's a case of looking for a friend in all the wrong places, in Barney Saltzberg's little parable of friendship found, Dog and Rabbit (Charlesbridge Publishing, 2019). As artist and storyteller, Saltzberg' work is simplicity itself. His art is done with small details, simple black line drawings and a few muted colors; each one of the characters is minimalist, but with a certain solidity. Dog is brown, with a big nose and medium-droopy ears; Rabbit is gray, pear-shaped, with evocative ears that never quite stand straight up, and both have simple dots for eyes and body language that allows readers to interpret all for themselves. Saltzman's text is equally spare, without modifiers.

Saltzman's theme appears equally modest, unexplicated, leaving it to the reader to explore the possibilities. Are Rabbit's expectations pie in the sky (the rabbit on the moon, as in some folklore)? Is Dog simply settling? Or does he simply see beyond superficial differences? What is it that makes certain unlikely friendships happen? Like many well-written children's stories, there are layers of meaning here, embedded within, that require perception beyond a quick read-through.

Can You Hear Me Now? The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld

ONE DAY TAYLOR DECIDED TO BUILD
SOMETHING AMAZING.

TAYLOR WAS PROUD.

Taylor's tower has six stories! It's terrific! It's his triumphant tour de force, his piece de resistance, his magnum opus!

And then a small flock of bad birds knock it down. It's unforeseen! It's unfortunate! It's unfair!

It's a hopeless wreck!

Taylor huddles in a puddle of sadness.

THE CHICKEN WAS THE FIRST TO NOTICE.

She clucked a sympathetic invitation to talk about it, but Taylor didn't feel like chatting with Chicken.

Bear advocated anger.

LET'S SHOUT! GRRRR! RORRR!

The Elephant advised that entertaining happy memories of his tower would make Taylor feel better. Taylor sadly didn't go for either suggestion.

Snake advocates transferring his feelings to someone else.

LET'SSS GO KNOCK DOWN SOMEONE ELSE'SSS....

Misery may love company, but Taylor didn't want pass his pain along to someone else, either. None of his animals offered what he needed--except Rabbit.

TAYLOR DIDN'T NOTICE THE RABBIT.

BUT IT MOVED CLOSER AND CLOSER.

Sometimes all a kid needs is sympathetic silence and a quiet cuddle, in Cori Doerrfeld's The Rabbit Listened (Dial Books, 2018). Author Doerrfeld's text slyly allows Taylor the chance to reject a lot of ways to handle loss, and artist Doerrfeld's endearing and poignant illustrations are both simple and yet skillfully nuanced. For a sweet rabbit story that has nothing to do with sweet treats for Easter, this one is a choice choice. As Publishers Weekly puts it, "Each of Doerrfeld’s highly distilled and elegantly concise vignettes brims with emotional honesty and profound empathy. The result is a story that’s wise, funny, and easy to take to heart."