Digital picture book Be Brave, Little Bunny, written by Simon’s Mama (Cynthia212) and illustrated by bluedogrose is a 21-page story for children 1-3 years old of a mother’s wish for bravery and adventure for her little bunny.
In the beginning of the story, the mama bunny urges her little bunny to have an adventure, but he protests that he has been frightened by things away from her. In the middle of the story, he takes her advice and has an adventure. By the end of the story, mama bunny has to call him home. He has discovered some courage along the way.
The text matches with the illustrations, but at times I felt that the text was a stretch in order to be descriptive of the picture. For instance, the text for a picture of a bunny riding a horse with two other animal friends is “Wound up galloping down a country lane on a buckskin horse.”
Rhyme, rhythm, and repetition are the most dominant storytelling techniques present here. The mama bunny encourages her little bunny to explore, to which he protests that he did but didn’t like it and wants to come home. The mama bunny replies the same line a few times before the little bunny does what his mama asks and has a little adventure, returning of course to her loving arms after she beckons him home. The repetition of mama bunny’s response and the repeated structure of the mama’s urging and the little one’s response is an expression of the theme: the little bunny can rely on his mama bunny’s response just as he can rely on her love.
The theme of this book is lovely: the unconditional love of a parent is there to support a child who is nervous to be on his own. However, the meter breaks several times throughout the text, and some of the rhymes are a bit of a stretch.
I’m sure the little one for whom this story was written found it a comforting love letter from his mama about being bold but knowing that she is always there for him. The illustrations and message of this book may appeal to young children, but the broken meter may bother the adult reader. It is effective in the sense that the text matches with the pictures, but, just as the mama’s reply to the bunny is repeated several times in the beginning of the book, so is the illustration for it, something that would be different were it a print picture book. An illustrator would have added some nuance to each new picture to add depth to the story.
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