From Publishers Weekly
Writer/director Wedge's Oscar-winning animated short film about a widowed rabbit's last moments smoothly translates to print via this picture-book adaptation. Bunny, a bulging-eyed, puppet-like character clad in apron and spectacles, interacts with real dishes and utensils in a cozily appointed home. On a summer's eve, as Bunny bustles in the kitchen mixing up the ingredients for a cake, she hears a noise. A pesky moth has flown into her beloved wedding photo. After Bunny puts it outside, the moth swoops back in. Bunny, now angered, hits the moth with her spoon and mixes it into the cake batter. While the cake bakes and Bunny dozes, "suddenly the stove started to glow. The dishes began to rattle." Drawn to the bright light, Bunny flies off with the moth "into a world of stars and light.... And Bunny joined her husband." Straightforward sentences matched with scenes from the darkly lit film create a Hollywood storyboard effect. The transitions between Bunny's and the moth's points of view move fluidly, and the metaphorical passage to "the other side" is handled creatively, so that youngsters can interpret the ending at whatever level they can handle. Ages 4-8. (Apr.)work can currently be seen in the computer-animated feature film Ice Age, which he directed.
From School Library Journal
K Up-Bunny began as a film. In fact, it won an Oscar for best animated short film in 1999. A DVD is included with the book so, unfortunately, one can instantly see that something has been lost in the translation. The story concerns the intrusion of a pesky moth into the circa 1940s kitchen of a widowed senior. While the elder rabbit is baking, the insect knocks her wedding photo askew and continues to distract her. At last, a swat with a wooden spoon directs the moth into the batter and, ultimately, the oven. Then Alfred Hitchcock meets Elizabeth Kbler-Ross as a bright light ensues, the oven opens, and Bunny is pulled in and up, growing wings and reuniting with her beloved. The last shot is the wedding photo, this time with the rabbits' eyes closed. Much of the plot is conveyed in short, choppy sentences, in contrast to the film, in which part of the pleasure is derived from unraveling the wordless mystery. The cinematic elements that add energy, humor, or pathos-the movement, the thwacks and plops, the music-are, of course, missing. In the film, Bunny climbs into a blue, speckled oven that turns into a starry sky; that clever effect is lost in the choices of stills for the picture book. This work is best appreciated by those who have experienced loss and anticipate release from loneliness in an afterlife.
Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public LibraryCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
