Why So Sad, Brown Rabbit?

Artist Kelly makes an assured debut with this British import featuring a bachelor bunny who longs for a family and inadvertently gets his wish. Brown Rabbit is droopy-eared over his plight: he must sit alone on the sidelines while the animal families enjoy their springtime frolic. After a brief, fruitless search for a wife, the rabbit discovers a trio of just-hatched ducklings. A poll of farmyard inhabitants fails to turn up the ducklings' mother: ""What am I going to do?"" Brown Rabbit asks his charges. ""You're all alone like me."" But when the orphans snuggle close, the rabbit's nurturing instincts are awakened; he soon embraces his role as a paterfamilias with gusto. With an economical but warm text, Cain (Look Out for the Big, Bad Fish?) keeps the story moving. She effectively conveys Brown Rabbit as a good-hearted if slightly prim gentleman (he says ""Oh dear!"" when perplexed and refers to his ducklings as ""little fellows""). Combining a strong graphic sensibility with a confident ink line, Kelly's illustrations bubble with a sly wit and energy; the clean, almost decorative look of the characters and compositions is tempered with subtly textured colors of downy yellow, chestnut brown and cornflower blue. Here is an upbeat tale of a hare who makes a proud papa to a nontraditional family. Ages 3-7. (Feb.)