WILLOW AND BUNNY: A Story of Caring

TWO LIONS PUBLICATIONS, 2023

 WILLOW AND BUNNY is written by Anitra Rowe Schulte and illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist Christopher Denise. In a post earlier this year I wrote about a book with a similar title, Bunny and Tree, a wordless book illustrated by Balint Zsako. (Click the title to read about the reflections on HOME that it inspired in me.)

WILLOW AND BUNNY presents a more scrutable story, since picture books with text are, by definition, a bit more literal than wordless books might be. That certainly is the case when compared to BUNNY AND TREE. 

The two titles could serve well as material for a VENN diagram lesson/discussion. (Remember those VENN diagrams, now sometimes referred to insectionality?). 

Both involve a chance encounter between a bunny and a tree, both involve dangers and adventures, and both develop a powerful relationship between the animal and the tree. Both also are illustrated with rich detail and color. Even so, they are distinctly different, including in illustration style and media. WILLOW AND BUNNY uses a glowing balance of light and dark, striking a sort of impressionistic revelation of familiar natural scenes. I'd say luminous, but I tend to overuse that descriptor, although it suits these pages perfectly. The story, too, relies on near-realistic events and reactions, much more so than is the case in the previous book. While WILLOW, in this case, is deemed to have emotions and the implied ability to convey those emotions, most of the story feels close-to-real and is portrayed within limits of potential animal behaviors. 

That's a clear contrast with  BUNNY AND TREE, both of whom  achieve magical actions, communications, and experiences. 

The story line for BUNNY AND WILLOW conveys childlike emotional arcs (love of nature, sudden caution/fear, feeling lost, seeking safe harbor, longing for friendship, enjoying companionship, and friends sharing the reciprocity of support in hard times.) Its rich and satisfying resolution invites many reading repetitions, and welcomes even the youngest audiences to identify with and find comfort in the story. Spreads call on rich earth tones and green-gold glows to anchor a slightly magical story in familiar circumstances. Many spreads have the depth and appeal of framable art. Even if you don't get copies of both titles to do some compare/contrast of your own, I urge you to read this new offering. Its warmth and comfort will be worth the effort. 

BUNNY and TREE- Reflections on HOME

 This year's holiday gatherings have felt especially sweet. My recent move back to my home town (after MANY years away) find me taking part in big and small occasions with family and friends, most I  had rarely seen at this time of year. During the Fall, I enjoyed aa short visit to my longtime home to deal with multiple business matters. When my plane landed, a thought filled me- "I'm HOME!" Not many days later, as my return flight approached landing back in my hometown/new home, another thought overtook me, unsolicited: "You'll be HOME soon." Then, in a conscious, intentional thought, I compared those two reactions and I realized, to my deep joy, that I have TWO homes. Two places where I know my way around, where caring people who have been part of my life for a long time are near, and where I find joy and feel safe. We all require safe shelter and sustenance to survive, and will fail to thrive without relationships of love and trust.But HOME is immeasurably more than that.

Enchanted Lio0n Books, 2023

That's what brought me back to share this very special wordless picture book. BUNNY & TREE is a loving and moving debut endeavor by BALINT ZSAKO, A visual artist/photographer/filmaker, he was born into an artistic family in Budapest, Hungary but now is a resident of Canada.

This is an exceptionally impressive wordless book for many reasons, not the least of which is the quality of the art and the final product. Colorful, full-spread illustrations are expensive to produce for publishers, especially with the large page size, excellent paper, and surprising length of this offering.With a range of tones and colors, from glowing pastels to shadowed subtlety, each sprawling spread incorporates the gentleness or intensity needed to share a glorious field off flowers or a seethingly fierce wolf. The cover image here gives you a sense of the story, as does the title. The length of this book (184 pages) is beyond rare for such a publisher's financial commitment to storytelling and to art. This is a visual storytelling of escape, assistance, need, challenge, travel, hope, and the power of such emotional connections between friends. 

I receive picture books from authors and publishers (but with no promise of a review). I seek out most books I reveiw at my public library collaborative. (Cheers for those fabulous folks and facilities, at my prior home and now here!) I buy books as gifts and often reveiw those, since I curate actual purchases very cautiously. In this case, though, I learned about this July, 2023 release long before it became available, and I preordered. From my first "reading", through countless others since then, I have deferred writing a review because I felt inadequate to praise it. With SIX starred reviews (so far) and being named on "Best of Year" lists, I'll admit to a shift in my thinking. This is one of those phenomenal books that is getting outstanding support and will certainly be named among many medal and honor winners in the coming month. (All well-deserved.) I decided I would lend my small voice and limited blog posts to some other books that were still a step away from such glowing spotlights. Yet, these many months later, I have not shelved this book out of my line of sight. I keep it "at hand", because each time I examine it from front to back, retold its visual stories, I find more to love. New details or insights expand previous readings, and I continue to love it deeply. 

After my experiences reflecting on HOME and what it means, I picked this up again and found an even closer connection.

Throughout each reading, the short version of what happens is an epic journey, a nine-act story with prologue and epilogue. It seems both fanciful and familiar. RABBIT (with different-colored ears to foreshadow attention to color in images and impact) and its mates seek escape from a marauding wolf. Just as death is imminent, TREE reveals itself as having both empathy and unique abilities. Reshaping its trunks, branches, and limbs into the shape of a massive wolf head, TREE forces the predator to retreat. This is all in the the prologue. Each chapter reveals grateful RABBIT and caring TREE moving through helpful roles, balancing each other. All the while they discover places and experiences in a wider world that only bond them further in trust and awareness of the potential each offers. Their journey involves dangers and sacrifices, but this story provides the polar opposite of the Tree's sacrifice in THE GIVING TREE, a picture book both despised and cherished by readers of different opinions. 

I considered sharing an interior spread, or a short passage of my (latest) interpretation of the visual narrative in words, and choose not to do so. Whether you check it out of a library, gift it to someone you love, screen first by reading other reviews, or ask your local independent bookstore to show it to you, please "read" it. Many times, if you can. Over time. The meaning of HOME and FRIEND and COMMUNITY changes throughout each of our lives, as it does within the pages of this book. The magical accomplishment in this wordless marvel is the epilogue indicator that when we share journeys and emotions and understanding with others, nature itself may join the pro9cess in the most surprising ways.