The Flat Rabbit

After skimming the reviews, I tried to go into this book with an open mind. I usually like “message” books, I think it's important to talk to kids about subjects like this, but I couldn't really get behind this book.

I think it was around the time when the dog and rat think about bringing the rabbit's body back to the rabbit house, but decide against it because it would look bad. Maybe they thought the rabbits would blame them for the death of their family member? Regardless, I wish someone had said, no, that's exactly what you should do, inform the family of the death of their loved one, I'm sure they'll want to know!

The flying of the rabbit as a kite could have been fine for me, if, say, the dog and rat had known the rabbit in life and were friends, if the rabbit had dreamed of flying while it was alive, if the rabbit loved flying kites while it was alive, etc. As it is, they flew a stranger as a kite without knowing if the stranger even would have wanted that...maybe the rabbit was scared of heights when it was alive! If the rabbit was a close friend of the dog and rat, and this was their way of processing their grief, I'd be into that too. But here, I can't help but think about the rabbit's family who may never find out why their loved one never returned home one day. Or maybe they'll go outside and see the body of their family member flying in the air and freak out about it because now they think someone murdered their family member because they had a psychopathic desire for a corpse-kite. Anyway. Put me right in the “I didn't get it” camp for this one!