How to Be a Bigger Bunny

The team behind If You Were a Panda Bear and other titles introduces a bunny whose older siblings scamper off on an adventure without her. “Not again!” Tickles laments, before opting to read a storybook, How to Be a Bigger Bunny, instead. The motivational messages of the stories in the book—they include “Never Give Up” and “How to Be a Pirate,” which “showed her how to act and talk boldly”—come in handy when Tickles discovers that her siblings have become trapped in a hollow log. Wendell Minor creates a bucolic countryside home for the rabbits in sun-washed scenes of fields bursting with flowers, and a series of dream sequences—including a stint as a pirate and caped superhero soaring across the night sky—offer visual evidence of Tickles’s growing confidence. The aphoristic language can be heavy-handed or awkward in places (“The story showed how important it is to keep trying and to never give up.... When you never give up, you can do amazing things!”) but the message is a reassuring one, regardless. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)