We’re delighted to be part of the Rita’s Rabbit blogtour! Rita’s wish for a particular pet will be familiar to many children (and their parents!) but in this humorous story Rita learns that you should be careful what you wish for!
The Story: Rita really wants a rabbit so when Grandpa buys her a bearded dragon for her birthday she isn’t happy and tries to give it away – unsuccessfully! One evening there is a knock at the door and a rabbit hops in. As the rabbit causes chaos Rita soon learns that not all rabbits are cute and cuddly. But Spike, the bearded dragon, knows how to handle the situation…
And then the doorbell rings again…
Rita’s reaction to Spike is extreme and our sympathies lie with him as he tries to live with an owner who doesn’t want him – he even starts wearing bunny ears! But despite the way that he’s been treated he still helps Rita which leads to her learning to love him.
Rita wants a rabbit so much that she wears a rabbit onesie and paints pictures of rabbits but that changes once she has experienced the way that the fierce frowny rabbit behaves. We love the way that the text uses alliteration to describe the animals and there is so much humour in the illustrations. We keep finding more and more humorous little details and we love the way the first illustration showing Rita drawing mirrors the final one, just with a different pet.
One of our favourite illustrations shows the rabbit misbehaving, we love the ‘bow and carrot’! We also love the illustration showing the neighbours with all their pets…
Rita’s Rabbit would be a fun story to include in an Early Years topic on pets. It can stimulate discussion about the pets that children have at home, the pets that children would love to have and the different characteristics of animals. Another fun activity would be to describe their pets using alliteration.
Age Range: 3 +
Author: Laura Mucha / Illustrator: Hannah Peck
Introducing our new hamster, Ginger!
We’ve got a new pet, she’s not a cute cuddly rabbit or a bearded dragon, she’s a Gold Hamster called Ginger. She’s been with us for a few weeks now but is still quite shy.
She’ll let us stroke her but she hasn’t let us pick her up yet, maybe she never will! Here she is in her sand bath, she loves wallowing in it and flings sand all over the cage as she cleans her fur!
If you would like to read more about Rita’s Rabbit and see more bloggers’ cute pets you can hop over to the other stops on this week’s blogtour;
Thank you to Faber Children’s Books for sending us a review copy of Rita’s Rabbit.
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