Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale

In a smart blend of cartoons and sepia-toned photos, Caldecott Honor winner Willems spins a comical tale of trouble at the laundromat. Knuffle Bunny, a beloved stuffed rabbit, accidentally gets tossed in with the wash. When little Trixie realizes what's happened to her bunny, the toddler gets creative in conveying her loss. (Ages 2 to 4)
Child magazine's Best Children's Book Awards 2004

Publishers Weekly

Any child who has ever had a favorite toy will identify with the toddler star of this tale. The plot is simple: Trixie loses bunny, finds bunny and then exuberantly says her first words-"Knuffle Bunny!!!" The fun comes from the details. In an innovative style that employs dappled black-and-white photographs of Brooklyn as backdrop to wickedly funny color cartoons, Willems (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!) creates an entertaining story for parents and children alike. His economical storytelling and deft skill with line lend the book its distinctive charm, while the endpapers mitigate anxiety by clueing in readers concerning the solution to Trixie's problem. Willems renders the characters with Little Lulu-style pointed noses and their expressions are laugh-out-loud funny, from the hapless father's worried look as he and Trixie venture out to the Laundromat, to his roll-up-your-sleeves determination as he rescues the stuffed toy from the washing machine. But it's pre-verbal Trixie who steals the show. Her wide-eyed enthusiasm about the world around her is matched only by her desperate attempts to communicate. "Aggle flaggle klabble!" she says when she finds Knuffle Bunny missing, and her well-intentioned but clueless father translates, "That's right.... We're going home." An especially delicious scene finds the frustrated Trixie abandoning baby talk for action: "Well, she had no choice. Trixie bawled. She went boneless." The accompanying pictures comically corroborate the omniscient narrator's claim. Willems once again demonstrates his keen insight with a story both witty and wise. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature

A treasured stuffed animal is all too often lost or left behind, resulting in a tragedy for the small owner. Knuffle Bunny is Trixie's beloved companion, taken on a trip to the Laundromat with her dad. Readers and listeners will spot her problem immediately, but Daddy just can't understand Trixie's desperate attempts to communicate in her own language. By the time they reach home, Daddy is as unhappy as Trixie. Her Mommy, of course, immediately asks the crucial question: "Where's Knuffle Bunny?" Back they all run to the Laundromat, where they finally find the elusive bunny. In her delight, Trixie says her first real words: "Knuffle Bunny." The very succinct text is basically no more than captions for the illustrations. It is the visual narrative that keeps the pages turning. The artist places his full color set of cartoon characters, hand-drawn in ink, on backgrounds consisting of digital photography in shades of gray showing the neighborhood and Laundromat. A few speech balloons add dramatic content. Here hand-drawn pictures and computer-manipulated photographs join in a happy marriage in a situation any parent will understand. 2004, Hyperion Books for Children, Ages 2 to 5.
—Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 1-Trixie steps lively as she goes on an errand with her daddy, down the block, through the park, past the school, to the Laundromat. For the toddler, loading and putting money into the machine invoke wide-eyed pleasure. But, on the return home, she realizes something. Readers will know immediately that her stuffed bunny has been left behind but try as she might, (in hilarious gibberish), she cannot get her father to understand her problem. Despite his plea of "please don't get fussy," she gives it her all, bawling and going "boneless." They both arrive home unhappy. Mom immediately sees that "Knuffle Bunny" is missing and so it's back to the Laundromat they go. After several tries, dad finds the toy among the wet laundry and reclaims hero status. Yet, this is not simply a lost-and-found tale. The toddler exuberantly exclaims, "Knuffle Bunny!!!" "And those were the first words Trixie ever said." The concise, deftly told narrative becomes the perfect springboard for the pictures. They, in turn, augment the story's emotional acuity. Printed on olive-green backdrops, the illustrations are a combination of muted, sepia-toned photographs upon which bright cartoon drawings of people have been superimposed. Personalities are artfully created so that both parents and children will recognize themselves within these pages. A seamless and supremely satisfying presentation of art and text.-Martha Topol, Traverse Area District Library, Traverse City, MI Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Anguish begets language in this tale of a toddler's lost stuffie. Trixie and her daddy go on an errand to the local laundromat, an odyssey that takes the intrepid pair through the park and past the school and back-but "a block or so later . . . Trixie realized something." Her desperate attempts to communicate ("AGGLE FLAGGLE KLABBLE!") proving fruitless, Trixie resorts to time-honored toddler tactics: she bawls and goes boneless. Readers will deduce what Trixie's clueless daddy does not: her toy bunny has been left behind. Retro-style (think Rocky and Bullwinkle) cartoons depict the human players in the drama; sepia-tinted photographs of the artist's Brooklyn neighborhood, framed in pale green, provide the backdrops. Willems is a master of body language; Trixie's despair and her daddy's frazzlement as expressive as her joy ("KNUFFLE BUNNY!") and his triumph at the excavation of the errant bunny from the washing machine. The natural audience for this offering is a little older than its main character: they will easily identify with Trixie's grief and at the same time feel superior to her hapless parent-and rejoice wholeheartedly at the happy reunion. (Picture book. 2-5)