ARE YOU MY CUDDLE BUNNY?

This tribute to hugs and snuggles boasts tactile features on the cover, bright colors, and simple text.

This confection of a board book will strike caregivers as either charming or sickly sweet, depending on their temperaments. Magsamen’s latest entry in her Heart-Felt series does indeed feature both hearts and floppy felt bunny ears and arms on the cover. Little fingers will find the felt features engaging. Word of warning: the white felt appendages on the cover will surely collect dust, lint, and whatever grime may be on a child’s hands; over time they will lose their luster. A series of questions, one per double-page spread, accompanies pictures of hugging mother and baby bunnies. “Do you like to snuggle in the rain? // Do you like to nuzzle on a train?” Readers might well expect the next lines to be, “Would you cuddle in a box? Would you cuddle with a fox?” Shakespeare it’s not, nor Dr. Seuss either, for that matter. The images are pleasant enough, simply rendered to look like felt pieces “stitched” to the page. The climactic tableau asks, “Do you know I love you honey? / You are my sweet cuddle bunny!” Whether the child in the caregiver’s lap will be docile or squirming by then is, of course, an open question.

Cloying or cute but harmless either way.