01 Dec / The Year of the Rabbit: Tales from the Chinese Zodiac by Oliver Chin, illustrated by Justin Roth
How did 2010 whoosh by so quickly? Is it really December already?
Since ‘next year’ is just a month away, take a sneak peek at 2011 with baby Rosie! With her especially huge ears, she can hear everything … and she’s always up for trying something new. She’s convinced that “the grass might be greener elsewhere,” which leads her to a delicious garden, an assortment of new friends including a young boy named Jai, not to mention a few run-for-your-life adventures.
Chin, the founding president of his own press, Immedium, playfully uses a mix of rabbit-sayings (that parents will certainly giggle over) and raucous storytelling in the sixth volume of his Tales from the Chinese Zodiac series. Justin Roth returns with his tongue-in-cheek illustrations that give Rosie her pride in preferring beets to carrots, her delighted guffaws when having her lucky rabbit feet rubbed, her snarky refusal to color a basket of eggs.
With the same energy that infused Year of the Tiger in 2010, Year of the Rat in 2008, Year of the Dog in 2006, and numerous others, Chin celebrates all the rabbits born (and to be born) in 1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023 … and beyond …!
Chin adds an explanatory note at book’s end about said rabbits … “People born in the Year of the Rabbit are amiable and gentle. Known for having fine taste, they are nimble and resourceful too. But they can be wary and sometimes too clever for their own good. Yet rabbits are both fortunate and forgiving, so count yourself lucky to have friends like them.”
I’m lucky enough to have a Rabbit living at home … too clever by far sometimes, but thank goodness he’s nimble and resourceful, too, because like Rosie, he enjoys those run-for-your-life adventures way too much!
Readers: Children
Published: 2010