EMMALINE AND THE BUNNY

If you lived on Shipshape Street in a town called Neatasapin, you might want a very untidy bunny for a pet too. A bunny is what Emmaline wants, and she wants it “most mostly.” Mayor Orson Oliphant, however, has banned all potential mess-makers, including bunnies, spaghetti, jelly doughnuts and even trees (he calls them “leaf litterers”). He would banish the puddle-splashing, dirt-digging, “scoot-skedaddling” Emmaline if he could get away with it. When Emmaline’s hankering for a furry friend becomes downright painful, her parents finally agree to defy the mayor, un-pave their yard and create a suitably lush habitat to lure their daughter’s longed-for bunny from the wilds of nearby Untidy. With playful, alliterative, fun-to-read-aloud language (“Whackadoodlewhipperpoo,” for example) and its fantastical storyline, this winning, 32-chapter novelette recalls the magical whimsy of Roald Dahl. The author’s winsome watercolors lend an ethereal quality to this sweet, funny story that respectfully maps the warrens of a child’s psyche as it celebrates the glorious mess that is nature. (Fiction. 7-10)