Donna L. Washington

Li’l Rabbit is the youngest and he feels that he has nothing to give to his family. Karumu is coming up, which is a meal during Kwanzaa, and his nanna is sick and his mom is too busy to cook. Li’l Rabbit’s mom yells at him saying he should be thinking about his nanna and not food. He goes searching for gifts to give his nana, explaining to all his friends how she’s sick. When he returns home with nothing, he opens the door and all his friends were there to spend time with his nanna. She tells him the best gift of all was to spend time with all their friends. The overall message was that materialistic gifts aren't as important as giving thought and love to your loved ones. Also, the different animals coming together to celebrate Karamu can represent different races, religions, and ethnicities coming together to spread love and happiness. This shows children that anyone can celebrate Kwanzaa, and give them more of an open perspective on different culture's traditions. I thought that the book would be a great book for children to read because it shows how love, affection, and compassion are the greatest gifts of all. As he went searching for a gift for his Nanna, each animal helped look because they loved his Nanna as well. They all surprised her and showed up with food and gifts, which is a good lesson for children: Treat others how you would like to be treated. Nanna was caring and giving to the community, so when she was sick, the community gave back to her.
The pictures were interesting and engaging for children because they had a various amount of different animals dressed up in clothes. On one page, the squirrel is reading a book called "Best Trees to Climb" while sitting on a branch. On some pages, the pictures perfectly described the text, but on other pages the pictures weren't representing the text. For example, on the page where L'il Rabbit is jumping down the pond, it shows him jumping into air, not a pond. I think that for a children's book, they should've drawn the pictures to match what is happening in the scene. I did think that the pictures were vibrant and attention grabbing, the illustrator used bold colors on each page.… (altro)

Summary:
Lil rabbit is too small to help out with most of the Kwanzaa traditions. This makes him so sad. He is also sad because his Granna is sick and that means he cannot cook for Karamu. He looks for something that will make Granna feel better. Along the way he finds a lot of people his Granna has helped before and they all want to pitch in. They all meet up at Lil Rabbit's house to celebrate together. This book also has the Seven Principles in the back.

Personal Reaction:
I liked this book because it shows the character caring for his family and family is really important to me.

Classroom Extension:
1. This would be an excellent lesson on other culture's holidays.
2. Also a lesson on the foods and traditions they have and what kind of music is associated with this holiday.… (altro)