Have you ever wondered what all the other bunnies who aren’t the Easter bunny do when he or she is out there handing out eggs in a hippity-hoppity fashion?
Sure, some of the other bunnies might be engaged in helping the Easter Bunny do their thing but not all of them – so, what on earth do these bunnies do?
Well, according to Philip Ardagh and Ben Mantle and their thoroughly delightful book, Bunnies on the Bus, they ride public transport, with mayhemic disdain for other passengers, occupational health & safety and general commuter civility.
The thing is, while the shopping carefully bought by the pandas may go everywhere and the turtle can’t get on the bus, the rabbits are having a hoot, helped along in their hilarious endeavour by a rabbit bus driver who seems happy to disregard and all rules of the road.
It’s an absolute riot and a ton of fun to watch, helped along by the absolute glee on the faces of the rabbits who have turned commuting, which is traditionally not a lot of fun, into something utterly wonderful and chaotic and very, very silly.
If only things were this fun on regular commuting (although, to be fair, there’s a fair chance the city population not made up by rabbits may be a tad challenged in actually get on the buses).
Quite apart from the gloriously succinct and energetically worded rhymes, which lend an air of manic momentum to proceedings, what really makes Bunnies on the Bus such an inestimable joy to read is the artwork which adds all kinds of happy little details into the background.
Penguins eating whole fish sandwiches? Tick! Lions in ads where the word “mane” is deliriously, wonderfully punned? Raccoons robbing banks? Got that too!
It’s a hoot looking at every last detail on every last page as Sunny Town, which evokes a Zootopia-esque look and feel, while very much being it’s own lovely thing, and while the bunnies are having tons of fun riding the bus, which even manages to effectively fly at one stage, all the onlookers are given their moment to shine too.
In an elegantly-paced picture book, Ardagh and Mantle manage to do some pretty charming world-building, creating a wholly appealing world where animals catch buses and trains, where alligators sell magazines to hedgehogs and where mother ducks walk their half-hatched eggs along the road.
Everything is delightfully possible in Sunny Town and Bunnies on the Bus has a ball making it all come alive although, naturally given the title, the most fun to be had is on the bus!
All the rabbits, and what looks like a very relaxed sheep dog of some kind, are just going with the manic flow, and the zest and hilarity of it powers Bunnies on the Bus through to its final page where the rabbits, well, let’s just say they don’t slow down at all.
If you want a fun Easter-adjacent read for your kids, or your kids at heart (c’est moi), that is full speed ahead, anarchically poetic fun with artwork that’s a sweetly riotous joy to take it, then you need Bunnies on the Bus in your life, and I daresay, on your commute too.