School Library Journal Review
PreS-K-Griffith's rhyming quatrains tell the sweet story of a rabbit who-too sleepy to wait for the moon to appear-hops into his safe, grass-lined burrow. He dreams of a sky full of veggies, strawberries, and tender flowers, until the moon's buttery light seeps into his burrow, "spatters him with moondrops/shakes him out of bed-" and draws him out into the bright, flowery field to dance. What Rabbit does not see is the small gray mouse outside his burrow, a raccoon family watching from their hollow tree, and a deer and fawn asleep in the moonlit grass. Dronzek's large, oval-faced, jaunty-eared rabbit has attitude. The soft, acrylic spreads show an inky dark indigo sky, flowered fields, mountains, trees and stream, all tinged in the light of a glowing full moon. The successful integration of pictures and text in this quiet poem offers a lovely ending to a little one's day and an introduction to imagery, as well.-Susan Scheps, formerly at Shaker Heights Public Library, OH (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Opalescent moonbeams drench hyacinths, daisies, and dozing animals in this peaceful, Impressionistic tale. Initially, under cloudy skies, a sleepy brown rabbit "hops into his burrow/ just a little soon/ doesn't see the clouds blow by/ setting free the moon." While the rabbit naps, "Moonlight slides like butter" through a woodland and pond, illuminating leaves, branches, lily pads, and flowers. At last the sinuous light "seeps inside the burrow/ butters Rabbit's dreams" and awakens him from slumber to dance with "butter on his head!" In gestural brushstrokes, Dronzek (Birds) pictures a forest of midnight blue, violet, and emerald, along with a full moon exuding tendrils of creamy light. Moonlight coats the edges of trees, a resting doe and fawn, a tranquil robin's nest, and lazy trout. Dronzek's self-consciously luscious compositions reinforce Griffith's (Georgia Music) foodie metaphors and recall Georg Hallensleben's paintings for books like And If the Moon Could Talk. Griffith and Dronzek imagine a safe, human-free environment swaddled in unearthly light, inviting readers to taste a delicious summer night. Ages 2-5. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Griffith spins a lilting, seven-quatrain poem from an inviting simile -- "moonlight slides like butter / skims through outer space / skids past stars and comets / leaves a butter trace," providing as an earthly protagonist a rabbit so sleepy he misses the full moon's emergence from behind a cloud. He himself doesn't re-emerge, from his dreams and his burrow, until the end, when he "dances in the field / butter on his head!" Meanwhile, Dronzek's nocturnal scenes, in deeply saturated acrylics dramatized by the play of that buttery light among the shadows, feature other wild creatures and their young that go unmentioned in the text -- a drowsing goat and her kid, deer, birds, fish, raccoons -- each touched by the lovely light that seeps at last into Rabbit's burrow to wake him. Indeed, this inspired collaboration is lovely in every way: the poet's nearly punctuation-free words gently celebrate moonlight itself while the painter bathes living things in the silent light, freeing their simple forms of daytime detail and drawing readers into the quiet mood of mystery. joanna rudge long From HORN BOOK, Copyright The Horn Book, used with permission.
Kirkus Review
Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
