Mine!

On a snowy hill, two rabbits find a carrot tucked inside a top hat and immediately begin fighting over it, flinging “Mine!” back and forth like it’s a tennis ball at Wimbledon. A huge gray bunny joins the fray, dropping in some “Mines” of its own, followed by a band of five little rabbits who mix things up by insisting that the carrot is “Ours!” When the real owner of the hat and carrot appears (one whose identity readers may have already guessed based on where the carrot was found), altruism proves stronger than hunger or winner-takes-all competitiveness. Illustrator Jin (the Little Monkeys board book series) nails the ending of her first outing as author: the final spread has a dash of dark humor, while simultaneously enforcing the value of delayed gratification. She also impressively varies her compositions from intense close-ups to comics-style framings. But there’s little dynamism in her action, and her rabbits are all cut from the same emotional cloth—there isn’t much distinguishing the initial two rabbits from each other, let alone the ones that follow. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)