The book that was Petra’s favorite at the time when she turned one was The Runaway Bunny, I’m pretty sure. Other contenders were Babies, by Gyo Fujikawa, and Global Babies (notice a trend here?). But TRB is the one she brings when she is sad. She likes to find the mama bunny and the baby bunny hiding on each page, in their various forms.
I know that many people don’t like TRB, but I do, very much. I think the conceit is clever and well executed. I love the illustrations. And, of course, it makes me think of W;t, wherein a character describes it as “an allegory of God’s love for the soul.”
She’s just generally interested in bunnies. Silas can’t tell the difference between a rabbit and a mouse (in a picture, that is), but Petra definitely can. Her special lovey is a white rabbit. When she finds a bunny in a picture, she is just totally delighted. It always reminds me of my aunt Becca, who used to have several rabbits, and, later, had little rabbit decor hidden all over her house in Vermont. I haven’t visited her in her new home, in Wales, but I like to imagine that one would have the delightful experience, there, of noticing an antique rabbit guarding the soap dish, and another peering out of a print on the wall. The rabbits in Becca’s house, like those in nature, were subtle enough (and tasteful enough) that they never seemed like a cutesy theme–more like tiny surprises. I like to imagine how Petra would respond to a house like that.
I’m trying to figure out exactly how I’m going to do this square–I want to do something tactile. For Silas’ first one, I made the square kind of crinkly by leaving the freezer paper under the appliques. For this one, maybe I’ll do a piece of velvet for the sky.
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