Review by Booklist Review
In this Canadian import translated from the French, a little brown rabbit, his dad, and his dog live in a clearing surrounded on all sides by the towering dark trees of an impenetrable forest. One day, Dad decides to construct a tower high enough to see what's beyond the trees. Father and son work hard baking bread to sell in exchange for big stones. The structure grows until a terrible thunderstorm destroys the scaffolding, and the stones fall to rubble. Too exhausted to bake more bread, Dad collapses . . . until "something MAGNIFICENT happens!" While Dad sleeps in exhaustion, the neighbors come and rebuild the tower, creating complex ramps, scaffolding, pulleys, and buckets so that it is even higher than before. The charming text and dreamy artwork, which features industrious rabbits in clothes, convey the quality of an old-fashioned folktale, while the intricate details recall the extraordinary structures built by the characters in Arthur Geisert's pig books. Certainly a story "for all brave people with big ears!"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Canadian writer Robert (The Shadow Elephant) sets her fable in a rural village whose inhabitants are elegantly clothed rabbits, their trousers sewn to allow space for fluffy tails. The young narrator, Arthur, lives with his baker father, who is preoccupied with the impenetrable forest that surrounds their village. Long interested in what's on the other side, he dismisses superstition ("People say that wolves live in the forest, and ogres, and giant badgers") and forms a plan, ceaselessly baking bread and asking for payment in stones, which the villages bring eagerly, in order to erect a tower. Arthur helps: "It's very tiring. But a magnificent idea takes a lot of work." When a crisis derails the project, the village unites to find a solution. Storytelling by Robert and restrained, classically drafted spreads by DuBois (The Amazing Collection of Joey Cornell) proceed step by step, in documentary fashion, offering suspense and drama along the way. An epigraph from artist Ai Weiwei underscores the value of smart collective action--a potentially dry theory that Robert and DuBois bring to life with absorbing storytelling. Ages 3--8. (Mar.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
This French Canadian import features a single father and son who undertake an ambitious project. The two brown rabbits live with their dog on a farm in a village surrounded by evergreen forest: A wordless spread captures its density with distinct trunks visible at the silhouetted composition's base, spires stretching to the tops of the pages, and the merest hints of light in the center. With young Arthur narrating, a minimalist text builds suspense: "People say that wolves live in the forest, and ogres, and giant badgers. No one ever goes in there!" His father, however, wants to know what's on the other side, and a "magnificent" idea forms. Baking mounds of bread, he arouses curiosity in the villagers (and readers). Neighbors follow their noses and soon find themselves exchanging large stones for loaves; the construction of a tall tower will provide a vista. Selected details--clothing, wheat, the wagon--are rendered in red, yellow, and turquoise, contrasting with the setting's earth tones and cream-colored pages. This orderly world turns into a scene out of a Brueghel painting when the villagers celebrate with games after a storm delays--but does not derail--the dream. The premise is not new, but the family structure, the cooperative community, and the quality of the precisely inked and colored art combine for a riveting read. Fear of the unknown, neighborliness, and an attentive dog are just the start of conversational possibilities. (Picture book. 4-7) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
