Blog Entry #16

 

 

Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl

Retold by Virginia Hamilton

 Illustrated by James E. Ransome

 The Blue Sky Press, 2003

 30 pages

 Historical Fiction

 

I chose this book because the story was very cute, and the illustrations were beautiful. I had never heard of this story before, but apparently it is a classic tale. The vocabulary used is reflective of African American culture in the southern United States. Bruh Rabbit was lazy and didn't plant anything for himself for the winter. Bruh Wolf did plant for the winter, and Bruh Rabbit stole from him. Bruh Wolf wanted to teach the rabbit a lesson so he set up a scarecrow out in the field, but it didn't scare him away. So the next night, Bruh Wolf made a baby girl rabbit made of tar. When Bruh Rabbit came back, he got stuck in the tar, and got caught.  In the end, surprisingly, Bruh Rabbit outsmarted Bruh Wolf.

            Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl has many double-page spread illustrations, and the text in relation to the illustrations is mostly formal. The illustrations in this book are paintings with what appears to be watercolor. The colors are softened, and this reinforces my decision of the medium being watercolor based. Almost every page of this book is a landscape, so the colors and mood of the paintings are naturalistic. The illustrator paid attention to the fine details of the animals and objects that are in close view, so the texture is easily seen. I love the formality of this book with large text on one side and large paintings on the other side. The informal pages are great too, all of them are double-page spread illustrations, and they are just beautiful.

This book would be appropriate for at least second grade level and above, the text is semi-lengthy, and the vocabulary is different. This book poses a great opportunity for a teacher to go over some of the vocabulary that may be new to some of the students' knowledge base. This book would also be great for a teacher read aloud or for placement in a classroom library. It is also a great opportunity to teach character education based upon the right and wrong actions taken by Bruh Rabbit in this book. This book has no awards or honors.