Rabbits in the Snow: A Book of Opposites

‘Rabbit’s in the Snow’ is the second in a series of novelty books that explores fundamental reading concepts for the early years readership (2- 4years). Although appearing more simplistic than the picture books produced previously with Macmillan, the series proved more challenging due to the multi-layered composition and reduced page format (24page). Striving to design a story structure that could be employed for up to 4 books – it became increasingly difficult to accommodate the six rabbit characters, different seasonal settings (winter, spring, summer & autumn.), a narrative, a problem solving element and the essential educational thematic to ascertain differences between colours, objects, actions, sounds etc. In this case, opposing words such as empty / full, up / down and fast / slow were introduced through a series of playful activities – skating, sledging, berry collecting etc. In the end all six characters work together to complete a snowman. The cool velvet wintery screen-prints were threaded together with a simple prose and decorated with a drawn snowflake pattern to maintain some of the more sophisticated visual characteristics first introduced in ‘Moon Rabbit’. Since the books release in 2013, ‘Rabbit’s in the Snow’ has been published in Korea by Kids M Project Research Institute, via Eric Yang Agency. The Book People selected ‘Rabbits in the Snow’ paperback edition to be included in a set of 10 books entitled ‘Winter Wonderland’. Other Authors in the collection include; Julia Donaldson, Kuzuno Kohara, Gillian Shields and Carl Norac. Available at: https://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?productId=255845&catalogId=10051 (Accessed 11 October 2019)