The Best Part is Coming Home

These little, safe adventures for little people reinforce the idea that coming home is the sweetest part.

Little White Rabbit
by Kevin Henkes
Greenwillow
ISBN: 978 0 06 200642 4
Audience: 1-4 years

Little White Rabbit wonders about many things, and as he hops, he imagines what they would be like, until he notices that he is far away, and hops back home to the place where someone loves him best.

This is a very simple little book for toddlers, written and drawn in the bolder style that Henkes has recently used for titles like A Good Day. I don’t love it as much as his earlier, more detailed works for older kids, but it is beautiful, sweet, and a lovely cuddly rad to share with your own little bunny.

Little Owl Lost
by Chris Haughton
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 978 0 7636 5022 3
Audience:

Little Owl is dozing, when *bump* he falls out of his nest. He runs into a squirrel, who promises to help him find his mommy. Owl’s descriptive powers are not strong, so squirrel’s guess is off the mark. As is his second. Eventually, though, a frog figures it out, and he is reunited. Grateful, he invites his new friends up to the nest for cookies.

The story is simple, amusingly told, and reassuring, but what really sets this apart from other lost-my-mom books (and yes, there are more than a few) is the art, which is really very unusual for a children’s book. Using strong but muted colours and simplified shapes reminiscent of a child’s drawing (with the preciousness that sometimes accompanies that), he has created a retro design sensibility that is quite different from the typical children’s fare, and is fairly sure to appeal to fans of Marimekko, Orla Keily, and so the like. If you’d like to take a sneak peek and get a feel for the book’s charm, take a look at Haughton’s website, where he has posted images of the first several pages, here.