RESCUE BUNNIES

Appropriately named Newbie is training to become a Rescue Bunny. She's conquered the Physical Fitness Test, the Emergency Rescue Roping Test and even the Blind Taste Test. The only test she still needs to take is the Field Test. At last, a call comes through. A giraffe is stuck in the mud, in hyena country of all places. It doesn’t look good. Newbie bumbles and fumbles, making rookie mistakes and exasperating both colleagues and victim, but in the end her fierce determination not to leave the giraffe, even in the face of snarling, wild-eyed hyenas, saves the day. Cronin and Menchin (Stretch, 2009, etc.) team up once again in this humorous tale that oddly—yet quite successfully—combines the message of perseverance, the importance of rescue workers and sly nods to adult readers along the way. Lines from popular movies are slipped into separate speech bubbles, which can be skipped or chuckled over. And what is the step that finally saves the splayed giraffe? The Bunny Hop, of course. An inventive look at an essential profession. (Picture book. 4-8)