nerd teacher [books] reviewed Battle Bunny by Mac Barnett
Not Something I'd Recommend
1 star
The concept of this book is at least interesting (a boy whose birthday it is 'hijacks' a story about a birthday bunny, changing it to a story of a battle bunny), but that's about it.
In terms of legibility, this book is way too hard to follow. Because it's written with scratching out lines (and still seeing them), it makes it very distracting and hard to know where you're supposed to look. The whole book is written in the style of a kid writing on top of an already published children's story. That's kind of cool, but the messiness makes it confusing; as an adult with dyslexia, I occasionally got lost figuring out which line to focus on. I can only imagine how a child with a reading disorder (or even a new reader) might get confused. (I do like the style, but I think it needs to be revamped …
The concept of this book is at least interesting (a boy whose birthday it is 'hijacks' a story about a birthday bunny, changing it to a story of a battle bunny), but that's about it.
In terms of legibility, this book is way too hard to follow. Because it's written with scratching out lines (and still seeing them), it makes it very distracting and hard to know where you're supposed to look. The whole book is written in the style of a kid writing on top of an already published children's story. That's kind of cool, but the messiness makes it confusing; as an adult with dyslexia, I occasionally got lost figuring out which line to focus on. I can only imagine how a child with a reading disorder (or even a new reader) might get confused. (I do like the style, but I think it needs to be revamped to be clearer.)
I'm also kind of bored by the constant narrative of "boys will imagine war." Why? Why can't boys imagine something other than fighting and dropping bombs on people? I don't really think this is a necessary stereotype to perpetuate, especially in the current climate. Granted, I also would've said the same thing when it was published in 2013. The stories for and about boys are so limiting that it feels uncomfortable, and we really should be discouraging a positive interest in war.