Battle Bunny

Product Information

Today is a special day for Bunny as he realizes that today is his birthday and spends most of the story going to his friends Crow, Badger, Squirrel, Turtle and Bear and telling them that today is a special day indeed! Unfortunately, all of Birthday Bunny’s friends do not seem to realize that today is his birthday and Bunny is upset over this. Today is a special day for Battle Bunny as he starts plotting to take over the world by cutting down all of the trees in the forest! Battle Bunny meets up his enemies Crow, El Tejon the Badger Wrestler, Sergeant Squirrel of the Robot Police Force, Shaolin Bear and Ninja Turtle and he ends up beating up all of them. It seems that no one will be able to defeat Battle Bunny and his plans of world domination until a small boy named Alex steps up to take down Battle Bunny! Scieszka and Barnett tell the real story on top; both in written form, but also by creating the idea of a young naughty boy graffiting his own book. The story of ‘Battle Bunny’ is a far more explosive affair, a perversion of the original text as Bunny no longer wants to be a friend, but the master of all animal kind. Written in apparent pencil, the imaginary author scratches out much of the original text and instead writes their own story.

The reason why I gave this book a four star rating was because there were times where it was difficult to read through this book due to having to read two different stories going on at the same time. Now, this is a pretty creative way to write a story, but this might be pretty hard for some children to read through, especially if they are not used to reading two different stories going on at the same time.

Table of Contents

Young children do not always have the best poker face so when they are given a gift they don’t really want, they may not spare your feelings. The little boy who received Birthday Bunny was seriously unimpressed, so much so that he has taken out his pencils and rewritten the story. Gone is the tale of a rabbit trying to work out if any of his animal friends have remembered his birthday and instead we get an epic battle of bunny versus the animal kingdom. Adults may see the fun, too, or they may wrestle with the fact that this is a very difficult — nearly impossible — book to read aloud. Even if you decide to read only the rewritten version of the story, you would want to stop at each sentence and note what had been scrawled out — because that’s the point of having a layered narrative. But doing so spoils the momentum of the story — either story. On a deeper level, I truly appreciate the underlying message that there are too many children's books published that are completely predictable and mindless in their formulaic plots. The inane and saccharine dialogue in the defaced book would drive me crazy. I still love reading picture books with our girls, but I am so grateful that they've grown out of that kind of drivel.

Parents may also feel an instinctive dislike of seeing a book defaced. It’s a taboo, of sorts, for book lovers, which is probably why it gives third graders a frisson of excitement. They’re old enough to know they would get into trouble for treating a book that way — certainly a schoolbook or a library book. The urge to rewrite, though, is a creative one, and there is exuberance, bravery and brash authority at work here. At first glance, you might mistake this little book for one of those slightly old-fashioned illustrated stories grandparents give preschoolers as holiday gifts. It could be a Golden Book, say, illustrated by Garth Williams. This one is already inscribed: “To my little birthday bunny on his special day. Love, Gran Gran.” The note appears to have been written in ballpoint by someone who studied penmanship. But below that inscription, the book’s title has been defaced: What was once “Birthday Bunny” has been scrawled over, with a marker and in a far less steady hand. It now reads, “Battle Bunny.”

Overall, we were fascinated and completely entertaining by this truly unique concept book and we really enjoyed reading it together. The first day I tried reading the book aloud on my own--- alternating between the original text and Alex's. The next day I invited one child to join me, reading Alex's story and then had the kids take over completely --- one reading Birthday Bunny and the other reading B attle Bunny. They had a great time! It may well be that the best way to take in the book is solo or with one other child, but I still think it was a blast to read this way. The group reacted, pointed out small things to one another, and just had a lot of fun. Jon tells me they are planning on providing a copy of The Birthday Bunny online for kids to print out and rework just as Alex did. Great idea! Jon Scieszka, a co-author, with Mac Barnett, of “Battle Bunny,” is a known mischief-maker. His 1992 book “The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales” (illustrated by Lane Smith), messed around with canonical children’s stories; his inventive, playful — and to some, heretical — approach was rewarded with Caldecott and New York Times Best Illustrated awards. “Battle Bunny” is another so-called postmodern book, merrily upending readers’ expectations about what a children’s book should be.