School Library Journal Review

PreS-Gr 2-When the bunnies of Pickle Lake apartments learn that rats have moved in downstairs, they set off on a rollicking trek down to greet them, gathering the rest of their animal neighbors along the way. McIntyre uses cumulative repetition and fun vocabulary to describe the movement of the animals as they hop and trot down the steps with increasing anxiety that rats are dirty and messy neighbors. The illustrations and arrangement of the text becomes increasingly crowded and chaotic, until reaching the unexpectedly tidy and welcoming apartment of the rats, Bertram and Natasha. The animals are depicted in vivid colors with expressive faces, and each character has a distinctive personality. The varied size and placement of text across the pages as well as the use of space and lines within the illustration serve to underpin the movement of the story. The cartoonish style uses saturated colors and contains humorous flourishes as the family of bunnies make mischief throughout the tale which culminates with an important lesson on making hasty generalizations about groups of people and animals. VERDICT The humor and fun vocabulary, as well as the engaging illustrations make this a storytime hit that may also be enjoyed independently.-Kelly Topita, Anne Arundel County Public Library, MD © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.