BETTY BUNNY WANTS A GOAL

Betty Bunny returns for a fourth entry in this successful series, focusing this time on scoring a goal for her soccer team.

In the previous stories in the series, Betty’s delightfully intense personality was defined through her obsession with chocolate cake, her over-the-top shopping spree in a toy store, and an incident involving lying and its consequences. These laugh-out-loud stories captured Betty’s precocious intellect and strong emotions, creating a believable character with a lovable streak of creative naughtiness. Alas, this time Betty just wants to score a goal on the soccer field like all the other little animals. She makes many mistakes in her first game, with her deflated attitude further depressed by snide comments from her older brothers. After just one week of coaching by her oldest brother, Betty scores her coveted goal in the next game and feels “the happiest moment of her life”—except for the first time she ate chocolate cake. The soccer plot feels forced onto Betty rather than growing out of her distinct personality, and some of the soccer jokes, such as scoring a goal in your own net, will be understood only by those children who already play soccer. Even the illustrations seem a little forced and crowded, lacking the distinctive sparkle of the previous stories.

Betty fails to score with this underinflated effort.