Pistes d'exploration

Reflect on how your reading preferences have changed over time. Discuss how authors and illustrators write and draw differently for younger and older readers.

Read the book aloud with a partner, one person reading the original text and one reading Alex’s revisions. Use expression to convey the differing tones.

Compare and contrast the characters, settings and plots of Birthday Bunny and Battle Bunny. Who are the intended audiences? Refer to specific story elements in your explanation.

Explore the Battle Bunny website. Make your own version of the cover or rewrite the whole story using the templates of Birthday Bunny available online.

Gather some discarded (library) books to revise in the Battle Bunny style.

Reflect on how your reading preferences have changed over time. Discuss how authors and illustrators write and draw differently for younger and older readers.

As the book is read aloud, make a classroom list of words related to birthdays and to battles.

Compare and contrast the characters, settings and plots of Birthday Bunny and Battle Bunny. Who is the intended audience for each story? Refer to specific story elements in your explanation.

Explore the Battle Bunny website. Make your own version of the cover or rewrite the whole story using the templates of Birthday Bunny available online.

Also known as literary hybrids or parodies, mash-ups are texts that combine two original works or genres. Here, a well-known genre – the children’s birthday story – is rewritten for a new audience.

The book is intended for “ages 5-7 (or 10 or 11 or 87).” Discuss the target audiences for both story lines in the book. Consider the message(s) the book is conveying through the altered story of Battle Bunny.

Gather discarded picture books from the library and create a mash-up version of them for a new audience. Use the production process to plan and create the new text.

The Cat, the Dog, Little Red, the Exploding Eggs, the Wolf, and Grandma, A Perfectly Messed-Up Story

Mots-clés

Humour , Picture book , birthdays , creativity , metafiction , rabbits , superheroes , villains

Commentaire descriptif

Crack open this book and you encounter a flowery, handwritten inscription by Gran to her beloved “birthday bunny on his special day.” That birthday bunny is Alexander. But the sappy, wholesome picture book isn’t exactly up his alley. Quickly he takes out his pencil and transforms the sappy tale of a rabbit who thinks everyone has forgotten his birthday into one about a “bunny super villain” bent on destroying his enemies in the forest. Of course, the only one who can save the day is “Agent Alex” himself. Text is layered so that readers can make out the original “saccharine” words beneath Alex’s edits. “Birthday Bunny started on his path, hopping through the trees” becomes “Battle Bunny started on his Evil Plan, chopping through the trees.” Pencil and oil illustrations recreate the vintage look of the Little Golden Books of days gone by and showcase Alex’s handwritten edits. Nearly every page has been ’defaced’ – words scribbled in or crossed out, illustrations modified – with a thick black pencil. Readers of all ages will enjoy the cleverness of an “absent” character that humorously subverts the story by adding himself in alongside presidents, robot police, megatron bombs and more.