Kunoichi Bunny

December 1, 2021

PreS-Gr 1-This captivating, essentially wordless, comic book-style picture book captures a child's experiences as she saves the day with her toy bunny. A pigtailed toddler sits in a stroller clutching her rag bunny as her father pushes her. She sees two cats fighting and throws the bunny between them, separating the fight. Then she cries "Koichi" (the bunny's name), prompting her father to retrieve it. The day continues this way, as she prevents a stroller from falling down the bus steps, rescues a gosling, stops a ball from hitting someone, and makes an old lady smile, all with the help of Koichi. At the end of the day, the father washes the bunny and tucks it and the girl into bed. Other than the exclamations of "Koichi," the story is wordless, as single-page, full-bleed spreads give way to horizontal and vertical panels at different points. The colored pencil and digital art has a realistic feel, with fully colored backgrounds depicting the city around the father and daughter. They both have black hair and large black eyes. The other characters include an interracial couple with a white woman in a wheelchair. Sato does a brilliant job with point of view, perspective, and zoom, moving the plot along and giving it the feel of an everyday superhero story. This inviting book effectively encourages visual literacy for the youngest audience. The involved parenting by the father, as well as the inclusive depictions, are an added bonus. VERDICT A delightfully engaging, welcome addition to most collections.-Amy Lilien-Harper, Wilton Lib., CT

Copyright 2021 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 3, 2022
In this spare, largely wordless picture book that utilizes a paneled comics format, city scenes proceed cinematically as a pigtailed child, dark-haired and light-skinned, saves the day using a stuffed, Miffy-esque bunny named Kunoichi—Japanese for female ninja. Cassidy’s (The Moon Is a Silver Pond) only text is the child’s repeated call for their largely oblivious bespectacled parent to retrieve the stuffy after its escapades, which include stopping an infant’s rolling stroller and cheering up an elderly bus mate. Onomatopoeia also appears: “PEEP!” reads one page, as the child spies a chick in distress below a storm grate. Kunoichi is slipped between the grate’s bars ears first, allowing the young bird to pull itself up. “PLOP,” reads the next page, as the chick is deposited onto the grass. After the bird snuggles Kunoichi (a red heart appears overhead), a “HONK” signifies its reunion with its parent. In his picture book debut, Sato (Father of the Witchborn, for adults) employs pencil art, finished digitally, in a cool-toned palette of indigo and salmon, particularly excelling at portraying dynamic, animation-like characters of varying ability, age, religion, and skin tone from a range of angles, and allowing easy visualization of the protagonist’s thought process through storyboard-like panels. Ages 3–5.

January 1, 2022
Superheroes can come in all shapes and sizes. In this Canadian import, Saya, a toddler with big dark eyes and dark hair, is heading to the park with her dad on a sunny day. Pushed along the sidewalk in her stroller, she sees two cats squabbling and flings her stuffed bunny, Kunoichi (a Japanese word meaning female ninja), toward them, dissolving the feline conflict. Readers soon see that Saya and Kunoichi are a covert superhero team. Over the course of the day's outing, they stop another toddler's stroller from rolling away on the bumpy bus ride, rescue a duckling who's fallen through a sewer grate, and deflect a baseball before it hits a White child at the playground. Dad, utterly unaware of the heroics transpiring right under his nose, patiently retrieves the plush toy time and time again en route to the story's sweet ending. Children will appreciate the compelling graphic format of this wordless picture book. The illustrations are rendered in a muted palette, and inset panels and splash pages are used to good effect, adding drama and focusing the reader's attention on Saya's and Dad's emotional responses. The story will resonate with young readers who believe their stuffies, too, can save the world. The main characters present as Japanese Canadian. Background characters are diverse and include a woman wearing a hijab. A visual, day-in-the-life adventure that can be used to stimulate literacy-rich conversations with children. (Picture book. 3-5)

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March 1, 2022
Preschool-Grade 1 In the father's eyes, it's just another day at the park, picking up his daughter's bunny doll every time she drops it. But the girl knows it's much more; it's an adventure. Together, she and her fearless bunny save a child in a stroller from rolling off a bus, rescue a duckling that fell through a grate, cheer up a lonely elderly woman, and even deflect a baseball that was heading straight for a boy's head. This wordless picture book skillfully uses graphic-novel panels to focus the reader's eye on the tiny acts of heroism as they occur. Kunoichi is the Japanese word for a female ninja, and while the muted pastel palette of gentle lavender and warm yellow keep the tone soft (rather than an exuberant manga style that the title would suggest), that surprise is as welcome as the book's depiction of a gentle, tender father-daughter excursion. While the bunny is never anthropomorphized---it remains a lifeless doll--the girl's bravery reveals her as the true kunoichi of this tale.

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