Introducing Our Featured Friend: The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
Children romanticize the experience of running away and being free from the normal routine, rules, and ways of home in order to explore the unknown. What they count on though, is that Mom will always be waiting for them when they return. In this story, as the boy bunny dialogues with his mother about running away, he realizes that not only will mother rabbit always be there for him, but also that she will come after him . . . because she cares.
Although Margaret Wise Brown is most well known for Goodnight Moon, this is one of my favorites by her. The illustrations and creative dialogue wonderfully express the imagination and desires of children. After the little bunny tells his mother that he wants to run away, and the mother promises to come after him, the pages of the book follow this pattern:
“’If you run after me,’ said the little bunny, ‘I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you.”
“If you become a fish in a trout stream,’ said his mother, ‘I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”
After the little bunny becomes a rock, crocus, bird, sailboat, circus performer, and a little boy, while the mother consecutively becomes a mountain climber, gardener, tree, wind, tightrope walker, and a mother, the little bunny concludes that he might as well just stay home and be her little bunny. “And so he did.”
A mother’s love knows no bounds.
Inviting You to Become FRIENDS with The Runaway Bunny:
Feel, Relate, Imagine, Explore, Navigate, Develop, Share
F- When do you most feel like discovering something new?
R- Out of all things little bunny becomes, which one do you relate to wanting to become?
I – Imagine you could become an animal and hop, fly, sprint, or swim away. Pick one!
E- Explore a type of place pictured in the book, e.g., a circus, and say 3 new facts about it.
N– Navigate a route for the bunny to travel to all the places pictured and come back home.
D- Develop one more page to the book by adding another thing for the bunny to become.
S- Share this book with children at Easter, Mother’s Day or when they become free-living!