The Black Rabbit by Philippa Leathers

Philippa Leather's first picture book, The Black Rabbit, is a gem. Her main character, Rabbit, is endearing and sweet, and compelling his own simple way. But that's also because Philippa Leathers has successfully set in motion a tight page-turner kind of storyline, with a rabbity bouncy kind of energy of its own. 

In a nutshell, Rabbit discovers he's being trailed by a scary (to him) Black Rabbit, and runs everywhere he can to escape from him, even into the ____ ____ _____, where oddly, the Black Rabbit doesn't follow. Only, he meets someone even scarier, who hotly pursues poor Rabbit mercilessly! In the end, it's the Black Rabbit who bravely saves little Rabbit and shows that he's friend, not foe.

The layout of text and choice of words used in this story are suitable for early readers. The words chosen are mostly simple words, and on most pages there are just one or two lines of text. The pictures are also simple, and therefore serve to support the reader's understanding of the text very helpfully.

 I have several ideas on after-reading activities to go with this book, suitable for pre-schoolers :

Plot - Sequencing of Events 

I can imagine selected key pictures from the book being reproduced onto cards. These cards could then be given to the child to be sorted according to the correct sequence as they occur in the story. While sorting, the child could be asked to retell the story. This would allow the child practice with using oral language, and also allow observations to be made of the child's use of language.  

Prediction

There are some junctures in the story which lend themselves nicely to prompting predictions from the child. For example, what will happen when Rabbit runs into the deep dark wood? Will Rabbit be eaten by the Wolf? This is even more fun, with the twist at the end, promising to upset some predictions! 

Character

There are no complicated characters here, but that's precisely why this lends itself well to leading early readers into a discussion about character traits. Many children would readily be able to describe the key character traits of both Rabbit, the Black Rabbit, and even the Wolf.  

Setting

Even in its simplicity, this book could actually lend itself well to introducing the concept of setting to early readers too. Rabbit goes from place to place; and what happens to him is very much linked to the places he goes to (e.g. the lake, the woods). There is even an illustration of a map outlining Rabbit's path in the endpaper.