SLEEPING BUNNY

Another retold fairy tale from the illustrator of Bunny and the Beast (2001), this time in collaboration with her daughter, finds Sleeping Beauty with a mostly bunny cast—that is, except for the fairies, who are pigs with wings, and a few other beasts who are courtiers. Keller tells the classic tale with wry and sly humor. At the beginning, the rabbit king and queen long for what is missing in their lives: “a baby bunny (which was highly unusual in their family!)” At the very end, the bad fairy Mildew, the rat whose spinning wheel offers the paw prick, presents Bunny and her Prince with eight golden dishes, so she won’t make the same mistake as her parents in leaving a fairy out, and “everyone lived hoppily ever after.” Silin-Palmer designs fabric and ceramics among other things, and has clearly studied the work of Dutch flower painter Jan van Huysum: her dark backgrounds and gorgeous, naturalistic flowers bedeck every image. Roses and butterflies, sunflowers and foxglove glow from the pages. Princess Bunny and her family wear more-or-less medieval royal garb that has a shimmer of its own. Really fun, if rather silly. (Picture book/fairy tale. 4-7)