Turns out, Little Bunny Foo Foo had an excellent reason for bopping all those mice on the head: they were stealing her cupcakes! The good fairy unfairly tsks our Bunny, but when she turns her into a monster, she gets her comeuppance...the good fairy tastes "very good indeed"! A funny way to round out the classic nursery rhyme. ( )

Author/illustrator Cori Doerrfeld presents a revisionist take on the classic children's song, "Little Bunny Foo Foo," in this bright pastel picture-book. Bopping the field mice on the head because they have stolen her newly baked cupcakes, Foo Foo finds herself unfairly persecuted by the Good Fairy, who doesn't understand why she is assaulting her murine neighbors. Eventually, Foo Foo is transformed into the threatened monster, but it is the Good Fairy who really suffers...

Although I do recall singing this song as a girl, it was never one of my particular favorites, and I haven't given it a thought for years. Truthfully, I'm not sure it really needed the fractured fairy-tale treatment, but I was curious to see what Doerrfeld would do with her story. Unfortunately, I wasn't terribly impressed with the result, finding the narrative a bit muddled - can't the Good Fairy see that the mice have made off with Foo Foo's cupcakes? - and the artwork too aggressively pastel and cutesy for my taste. I was surprised at how indifferent I was to this one, as I simply loved Doerrfeld's most recent offering (and my first title by her), The Rabbit Listened. Perhaps she's changed styles? However that may be, tastes do vary, so if you have a child who absolutely loved the song "Little Bunny Foo Foo," you might want to give this one a try. ( )

A mostly unsuccessful attempt at a "fractured" spin on the song. ( )

Read on January 19, 2012

I had to read this a couple of times before I realized that Foo Foo was unjustly punished by the Good Fairy. And that's not a good thing.

The first time I read it, I was horrified that Foo Foo ate the Good Fairy! I mean, she was basically rewarded through her "punishment." However, after I sat and stewed about what a terrible message this was for kids, I had to read it again.

Upon closer inspection, I realized that Foo Foo was just trying to get her cupcakes back that the Field Mice had stolen. It's unclear who hired the Field Mice to steal the cupcakes, probably the Good Fairy, but still...Foo Foo could have just told the Good Fairy what was going on BEFORE she was turned into a fairy-eating monster. Of course, if the GF was in fact evil, Foo Foo did the right thing.

As an adult, it's easy to overlook the picture aspect of a picture book, especially when it's something as familiar to me as "Little Bunny Foo Foo" (which I now have STUCK IN MY HEAD). Perhaps the illustrations could have been a little clearer. I don't know. But it's still kind of cute, and not terrible. It just takes a little more explanation. *shrug* ( )