Product Description

Emmaline lives in a very tidy town, but Emmaline is not tidy. Emmaline likes to hop, hop, hop and holler, “Hoopalala!” And, more than anything, Emmaline wants a bunny.

Orson Oliphant is mayor of the town. He is very tidy. Orson Oliphant does not like hopping and hollering. And, more than anything, Orson Oliphant does not like animals. He has banished them all, including bunnies.

But there is still one special, secret place in town where animals can hop and fly and be free—a place where there is a bunny.

Is there a way for Emmaline to have a bunny of her own?

Written and illustrated in full color by Katherine Hannigan—the best-selling author of Ida B—Emmaline and the Bunny is a celebration of ingenuity . . . and untidiness.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #175909 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-01
• Released on: 2009-02-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 112 pages

From Booklist
*Starred Review* In Hannigan’s debut novel, Ida B (2004), she introduced a furious young heroine trying to cope with changes in her life. Here, in this quiet fantasy, she offers something quite different. Emmaline wants a bunny, but Emmaline lives on Shipshape Street in the town of Neatasapin. Enforcing the tidiness is Mayor Oliphant, who insists that children be silent and spotless and houses be spick-and-span. The intimidated electorate adheres to his edicts. But Emmaline, a puddle splasher and silly-phrase shouter (“Dinglederrydee!”) is an anomaly, albeit a lonely one, since the other kids won’t play with her. So she seeks out a wild bunny, which she finds, and loses, and finds again, and in the process changes both her parents and her town. Told in very short chapters and using language in unusual ways, this is a small delight, cunningly illustrated by Hannigan’s own sweet watercolors, reminiscent of Beatrix Potter’s works. The fun wordplay is just the thing to get new readers going, but most children will simply enjoy listening to the story—again and again. Grades 1-3. --Ilene Cooper

About the Author

Katherine Hannigan's first novel, Ida B . . . and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World was a New York Times bestseller, a Book Sense bestseller, and a Parents' Choice Gold Award winner, and it appeared on more than twenty-five state award lists. She (and several wild rabbits) live at the edge of a meadow in northeastern Iowa.

Customer Reviews

A book for animal lovers
Reviewed by Genna Chatel (age 9) for Reader Views (5/09)

This book is about a girl named Emmaline who wants a bunny and she lives in a town that is very neat. So she goes to the wild to find a bunny that will play with her. She makes an invitation by making a safe place for the bunny to stay. All the animals come to her house and finally she sees the bunny.

My favorite part of the book is when Emmaline sees the bunny in the wild and wants to take to it home because she really wants a bunny and he is very cute.

Bunny is my favorite character because he is a very smart bunny and he knows how to do things like scoot-skedaddle and he's very cuddly.

I love animals too and I understand how Emmaline felt when she was not neat and when she wanted a bunny friend. In one part, the story made me feel sad because the bunny gets taken away, but then he was found so I didn't feel so sad.

I think the illustrations were watercolor paints and pencil. I loved the illustrations and every time I turned a page, I knew it was a good story. I couldn't wait to see what happened next.

Emmaline and the Bunny is a chapter book. It was easy to read, but a tiny bit challenging. In the story there were words I didn't know like scoot-skedaddle and dinglederrydee, but these words were funny to say.

I would recommend "Emmaline and the Bunny" by Katherine Hannigan to children who are 8, 9 or 10-years-old and who love animals. If I could, I would give this book 1000 stars!

Mom's note: Genna is a reluctant reader and she just inhaled this book. She read it in two days! It's the fastest I've ever seen her read and I didn't have to nag her to finish it, like I normally do.

This book will be a classic memory maker!
Everyone was always asking Emmaline questions. When she told them she wanted a bunny, no one paid any attention. She just happened to live on Shipshape Street in the town of Neatasapin and a messy bunny was simply out of the question.

Even Mayor Orson Oliphant was against messy animals and messy little girls. He sent those messy animals away and if Emmaline didn't shape up he threatened to send her away too. Bye, bye! It looked like Emmaline didn't have a chance at getting a bunny, but she could dream. Her mother said she could have one if she could be neat and tidy for one month. "Whakadoodlewhipperpoo, she sighed, this is very hard to do!" Would she ever get the kind of bunny she wanted? Would Mayor Oliphant wreck her plans?

This is an adorable book, complimented by lovely full color watercolors. This chapter book can be read alone, but I see it more as a circle time book or a personal "sit in a rocking chair, cuddle up book" to be shared with a loved one. It's a surefire memory maker for the little ones, especially if you purchase a stuffed bunny along with the book to add to cuddle time.

Hoopalala!
Scoot-skedaddle this book right into your shopping cart, and do not wait!

I'm our family's head groundskeeper, so to speak, and I make sure each child has their "own" trees and shrubs that we have planted on special occasions, their own bits of the yard to decorate (windchimes, painted bird houses, painted fences, climbing vines, bird feeders, etc.) I also make sure each child has a garden to work in every year, and they can pick out their seeds and plant them. We live in Phoenix, so we can plant 3 times a year. My oldest is absolutely nutsos about gardening. He is always the first one downstairs in the morning, zipping outside to look for progress. He is the child who measures off how high the beanstalks are, how wide across the sunflowers have gotten, and how the perennials are doing. His job is composting, and for him it is not even a chore to take it out and dump it into the composter every night. He is careful about watering and very, very interested in his "untidy" space.

Watching the kids out in their gardens has made me value dirt more than I already did, because their little personalities sparkle when they garden. This one sings to the flowers, this one plants only stuff we can eat, this one overwaters and sits plop down in the mud, this one insists on hanging windchimes all over... they are careful and free and responsible and messy and HAPPY when they garden. Glory be.

Emmaline and the Bunny sings to that message -- that children are wild and free, that gardens are fun and secret places, that trees and bushes are an invitation to wild creatures to come and hang out near the people. The book even features a wise old-lady gardener, just like me! (and for extra magic, her braid has its own personality!)

I love the illustration of block after block of concreted-in city houses with regimented greenery and no life -- it really encourages families to get away from the dull, dry, dirty city-of-sameness and venture out into the country (or suburbs) where your kids can grow free and smell freshness.

The book is poetic and lovely.

Easy chapters (only a couple of pages per chapter) and BIG illustrations make this great for your first or second grader, but even little children will respond to the happy language, the poetry, and the comfort in the story. Lovely! Lovely.



p.s. -- if you are looking for "green" credentials, at the very end of the acknowledgments there's a fanciful list of how much energy was "saved" in the production of the book. As if compiling a book is an environmental *crime* that requires remediation and absolution. Ha! Greenies slay me.