Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | EASY HEN | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Valley Library (Lakeland) | EASY HEN | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
There once was a boy, a rabbit, a magic seed, and a book...
The boy, who was bored, went looking for something to do.
The rabbit, who was curious, explored until he was lost.
The seed was thirsty, but soon it grew and grew and grew.
And the book Turn the pages! It will make you so happy.
"A satisfying look at the interplay of nature, time, and love." (Publishers Weekly)
Author Notes
Kevin Henkes was born in Racine, Wis. in 1960 and graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. One of four children in his family, Henkes grew up with aspirations of being an artist. As a junior in high school, one of Henkes's teachers awakened his interest in writing. Falling in love with both writing and drawing, Henkes realized that he could do both at the same time as a children's book author and illustrator.
At the age of 19, Henkes went to New York City to get his first book, All Alone, published. Since that time, he has written and illustrated dozens of picture books including Chrysanthemum, Protecting Marie, and A Weekend with Wendell. A recurring character in several of Henkes's books is Lily, an outrageous, yet delightful, individualist. Lily finds herself the center of attention in the books Chester's Way, Julius, the Baby of the World, and Lily's Purple Plastic Purse.
A Weekend With Wendell was named Children's Choice Book by the Children's Book Council in 1986. He recieved the Elizabeth Burr Award for Words of Stone in 1993. Owen was named a Caldicott Honor in 1994. The Year of Billy Miller was named a Newbery Honor book in 2014.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Henkes (Kitten's First Full Moon) here concentrates on the text, interweaving the stories of a magic seed, a bored boy and a stranded rabbit into a spare narrative. Lobel (On Market Street) gives the threefold tale a Mexican or South American setting, conveyed with an illustration facing the title page: the boy and his mother, dressed in brightly patterned clothing, wave goodbye to the vaquero father as he rides off into a desert landscape. Lobel inventively emphasizes the trio of themes with pages often divided into three panels that visually tell the concurrent stories, which unfold in brief, declarative statements: "The seed was thirsty./ The rabbit was lost./ The boy was bored." Swirls of Van Gogh-esque brushwork emphasize the imminent drama in nature, while the boy's sterile white environment stresses his inactivity. The three subjects begin to intersect after a rainstorm in which the boy plays, the seed grows and the rabbit becomes trapped by a quickly filling creek bed. In complementary contrast to the minimalist story, which could take place in any setting, Lobel uses deliberate, heavy brush strokes to depict the desert's flora and fauna (purple hills, spotted frogs, prickly cactus) and vividly evokes the movement of sky and water. When the amaryllis-like flower bursts from the seed (the boy picks it for his mother, who planted it) and the rabbit arrives home (courtesy of the boy's playtime endeavors), young readers will be left with a comforting feeling of the world's interconnectedness (even the father returns in the final spread). Ages 2-up. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Preschool) A thirsty magic seed, a curious little rabbit, and a bored young boy all experience a great change when rain finally falls. The seed grows rapidly; the exploring rabbit discovers that the creek he crossed is now much wider and has cut him off from his home; the boy revels in the falling rain and then, with sticks, constructs a bridge over the creek. The rabbit is shown getting safely home again, the little boy picks the now-glorious flower grown from the seed and takes it home to his mother, and all are ""so happy!"" Henkes's gentle tale uses spare language to come to its satisfying conclusion, but Lobel's paintings, lush, impressionistic, and dramatic, work against the story's simplicity. She sets the story in the desert, creating a backstory in which the boy's father is seen riding away on a horse, returning safely at the end. The seed grows into a tall, red amaryllis-like flower, but the effect at the end with the broken stalk is rather brutal, and not happy at all. The paintings, with intense colors and Van Gogh-like brush strokes, tell a compelling story -- just not the same one Henkes seems to be telling. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Gr. 1-3. Three components--a "magic" amaryllis seed, a lost rabbit, and a restless boy--intertwine in this powerful collaboration between two acclaimed author-illustrators. Henkes contributes text stripped gracefully to essentials: "There was no rain, so the seed didn't grow"; the little rabbit, exploring, "wandered and wandered until it didn't know where it was"; and the boy could "think of nothing to do, so he did just that." Then "the rain came." The drenching water strands the rabbit on the wrong side of a storm-swollen creek, nourishes the seed that blooms into a bright gift for the boy's mother, and inspires the boy to construct a bridge that carries bunny home. Lobel's vigorous artwork, a riot of color that pays homage to Van Gogh, locates events in a sun-toasted, south-of-the-border landscape, and captures the rhythm of Henkes' splitting, braided narratives in triptychs alternating with cohesive scenes. For readers slightly older than those targeted by Henkes' Kitten's First Full Moon 0 BKL F 15 04 or Lobel's One Lighthouse, One Moon 0 (2000), this deceptively simple drama imparts a reassuring sense that, at least sometimes, the seemingly disparate incidents of life incline toward universally beneficial, "so happy" convergence. --Jennifer Mattson Copyright 2005 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-Original and fresh, Henkes's latest surprise is a collaboration with Lobel, who provides watercolor and gouache illustrations in a style reminiscent of Van Gogh. Set in the Southwest, this circular story about a seed, a rabbit, and a boy is reinforced by the rounded forms in the artist's highly textured scenes. The moon, the sun, the glow enveloping the seed and the child, the frenetic lines of motion surrounding the rabbit and the arc of the rainbow all serve to reinforce the cycles of life that are the subject of this drama. The just-planted seed doesn't grow, the rabbit (who has hopped over the narrow part of a creek) is lost, and the boy is bored-until it rains. Catalyst for all that follows, the storm swells the river; thus, the rabbit is prevented from retracing his steps, the boy is inspired to build a bridge from sticks, the hibiscus is nourished, and the rabbit has a way to return home. The minimal text is paired with one-page scenes, full spreads, and triple panels as dictated by the pace of the plot. In the end, the seed planted by the mother becomes a present from her son; the family portrait depicts the woman finding a spot for the bloom and father and child preparing to read a book on bridges. A satisfying look at the interplay of nature, time, and love.-Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In a rich landscape that could be Mexico or the Southwest, a woman plants a seed; her son can't think of anything to do; and a little rabbit crosses a tiny bit of water "narrow as a ribbon." When the rains come, the seed starts growing, the boy is excited, and the rabbit gets "wet and scared." When the rain stops, the boy starts to build a bridge across the creek, now "wide as a door" and green shoots make a flower. There's a rainbow, the rabbit gets home crossing the bridge, and the boy brings the flower to his mother. Everyone was "so happy!" Using very few words, Henkes makes this marvelous, evocative tale sing. Lobel's brilliantly colored watercolor-and-gouache paintings capture both the shadows and the golden light, the hills and the scrub. The mother's dark braids and brightly embroidered clothing contrast nicely with the white muslin of her son's; when the father comes home at the end of the story (after galloping off in the morning), he wears a striped serape and brings his son a book about bridges. Reassuring and beautiful. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
