Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this award-winning book will delight your kids from start to finish. The simple drawings and storyline do just what a children's book is supposed to do -- force readers to stretch their imaginations.
Families can talk about how to turn ordinary household objects into extraordinary ones. What would your box become: A submarine? A school? An airplane? Families can also talk to older kids about why the bunny gets frustrated when people don't understand that his box isn't just a regular box.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Heidi Kotansky
Whether it was inside a box or under a sheet propped up with pillows, we've all created fantasy worlds in which we could act out our own adventures.
That's exactly what NOT A BOX retells for us. The cute-yet-simple line-drawn bunny acts as the main character, transforming his box into portals of exciting scenarios: driving in a race car, standing on top of a mountain, riding in a hot-air balloon or a rocket. Some might see a plain old box, but the bunny looks beyond the cardboard walls and repeatedly states that the box isn't a box at all; it's whatever he wants it to be.
Antoinette Portis both wrote and illustrated this book. And although the drawings are nothing to write home about (they're mostly black, white, and red lines), somehow, out of her extreme minimalism, we see just how sweet -- and sassy -- the bunny is. We actually feel his frustration when he has to explain what the box really is at that moment in his play world.
However straightforward the message is, it's hard to dismiss. What makes Not a Box memorable is the way that it doesn't let you lose your creative grip on the importance of imagination -- and the fact that it's not such a good idea to squelch anyone else's imagination, either. Just like the bunny, everyone should get the chance to make it to the moon.
From The Book
What are you doing on top of that box?
It's not a box!
Why are your squirting a box?
I said, it's not a box.
Now you're wearing a box?
This is not a box.
Plot Summary:
Dedicated "to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes," Not a Box starts even before the actual story begins, as the protagonist bunny drags and pushes his box through the title and dedication pages.
After that, each page opposite a drawing of the bunny and his box poses a question, "Why are you sitting in a box?" or "What are you doing on top of that box?" Flip the page, and you see that the bunny isn't just sitting in a box or standing on top of one; he's actually sitting in a race car or standing on top of a snow-capped mountain. With the stretch of his imagination, he transforms something as simple as a cardboard box into an adventurous situation.
In the end, he dismisses the voice that's questioning his prop and travels in his box (a.k.a. rocket ship) into space.
Related Books:
Other Books About Imagination:
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Moon Plane by Peter McCarty
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
Other Books About Bunnies:
Bunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells
Bunny My Honey by Anita Jeram
Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
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