A review tail of 2 bunny books: Billy Bunny and Counting Bunnies

With Easter just around the corner we were given the opportunity to take a look at two books about bunnies.  Easter bunnies that is, all hopping happy and here to make small children smile with delight.  More Mojo is 1.5 YO and 3YO Mojo both love books so we gave it a go.  The results were mixed, but neither one left us with a lump of charcoal in our Easter egg.

Billy Bunny and the Butterflies by Maurice Pledger is everything you could want in an Easter themed book. This is not an Easter book per sea, but its main character is a bunny named Billy and it’s being released 3 months within Easter.   If it hops like a bunny and has long ears like a bunny, then I’m calling it an Easter book.

Billy Bunny is looking for butterflies.   Everywhere he looks his animal friends are trying to point him in the direction of butterflies.   They look under buckets, in bushes and flowers, but all they find are more animals.  Thankfully for the children Billy Bunny is looking for the butterflies in a lift the flap book so they can look along with him.

The print in the book is large, has simple words, big pictures, has lots of animals and is a lift the flap book.  1-4 year olds will love this book and it’s short enough that you can read a couple of times in one bed time.

Counting Bunnies is a very appropriate name for the book because that’s exactly what you’re doing.  Count the bunnies in the pool, in the van, in the park or in bed.  It starts with one bunny and goes to ten bunnies, all very happy and looking as cute as the day is long.

On each page there is a like numbered object as the number of bunnies.  If you see 10 bunnies you’ll see 10 objects on the pages also, it could be stars, hats, balls or flowers, but you’ll see them.

The recommended age for this book is 3 and up, but our 3YO didn’t care for it too much.  His younger brother likes the book more than him.    Our 3YO certainly needs assistance counting to 10, but it’s not as basic as this book makes it out to be.

On the positive side, Counting Bunnies has really thick pages, which makes it very simple to turn.  I suspect that when More Mojo is 2.5 this book will be perfect for him as we can count the bunnies and objects together.  With our 3YO we try to count together, but he just winds up telling me what animals are on the page or telling me the colors.  He can focus with books that have more words and are less toddlerish, but with this one he’s all over the place.

Billy Bunny and the Butterflies is great for kids 1-6, while Counting Bunnies is OK for kids 0-2.5.

We were provided with a complimentary copy of each book for review purposes.