Caramel reviews Voyage to the Bunny Planet by Rosemary Wells

Today Caramel is talking to Sprinkles about Voyage to the Bunny Planet, a little book by Rosemary Wells, first published in 1992.

Sprinkles: So Caramel, today we are talking about a book about a planet of bunnies!

Caramel: Yep, something we would like!

S: Well, I quite like living on this planet. 

C: Me, too. But it is also cool to think of a planet only for us, you know. 

S: That is true. It might be fun to think about that… Okay so tell me what this book is about.

C: It is about three bunnies named Robert, Claire, and Felix, who are sad, and they dream about a planet called the bunny planet. On the bunny planet, there is a bunny, Janet the Bunny Queen, who helps them feel better about their day.

S: That sounds neat!

C: Yeah, it is a neat idea. 

S: So they get to do a do-over of something that went wrong?

C: No, it is more like she helps them feel better by seeing things in different ways. 

S: That makes sense. So do all three bunnies have a bad day at the same time? Are they friends? Do they know each other?

C: No, I don’t think so. The three bunnies each have their own stories. It looks like each story is independent, and maybe they were even published as separate books first, and they put them in one book here. 

S: Yes, it does seem like it, Caramel. I saw online that there were three little books before this one, and this one brings all three together and adds a little bit to the beginning about Janet the Bunny Queen.

C: That makes total sense. The three bunnies’ stories are all separated, like different chapters. The first story is about Claire and is called “First Tomato”. The second is about Robert and it is called “Moss Pillows”. And the last one is called “The Island Light”, and that one is about Felix. So I can see how they were separate books first. 

S: I think the author added an introduction about Janet the Bunny Queen for this collection. But it all seems to have worked out fine, right? It worked like a single book for you?

C: Yes. Of course this book is already quite short, so the three individual books must have been even shorter. But then again, it is a little book for little bunnies, so that makes sense, too. 

S: Yes it does! And I think little bunnies can read them with a parent bunny or with an older sibling bunny, and they can read one story at a time. I can imagine how that could work for a nice nighttime reading. 

C: Yeah, it would be a nice calming book to read, or be read to from, after a hard day. And every little bunny has a hard day every now and then. 

S: Of course! Every bunny has a hard day sometimes. Remember Alexander, who had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day? 

C: Yes! But that book went through the whole day, and everything did go bad for Alexander, and he kind of had a bad attitude about it, too, and it ended that way in the end, too. Here the unhappy bunnies end up happy. 

S: I can see how someone who had a bad day can appreciate Alexander’s story, too. When you are really grumpy, you might want to continue to be grumpy and annoyed and feel like all is wrong with the world and sulk. But more generally, it is a good idea to be able to shift perspective and take a different look at things, and try to see them from more positive angles. Voyage to the Bunny Planet seems to be saying that. 

C: Yes. You know, I kind of was angry at Alexander. He did get a bit too whiny when a lot of the time he was just unlucky. And there were no bunnies in that book. So I think I like this book a lot better.

S: I can understand that! Also, Alexander’s story does not end happily, and you like happy endings. 

C: Yes, that is another reason why I like this book a lot more. 

S: I am glad you found yet another book that you like Caramel! So this is a good time to wrap up this review, I think. 

C: Yep, I agree.

S: What do you want to tell our readers?

C: Stay tuned for more book bunny reviews!