Knuffle Bunny

Knuffle Bunny; A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems

2005 Caldecott Honor Book

Knuffle Bunny Too; a Case of Mistaken Identity  by Mo Willems
2008 Caldecott Honor Book


Knuffle Bunny Free; An Unexpected Diversion by Mo Willems

I love the Knuffle Bunny books and so does everyone in my family. They are worth reading again and again. They are hilarious and deal with the stuff real kids care about!

The series begins with Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale where in our hero Trixie is a pre-verbal toddler and on a trip to the laundry mat with her dad, her beloved Knuffle Bunny gets thrown in with the wash. After a frantic race through the neighborhood back to the laundry mat, the bunny is recovered.

The pictures in these books are extra cool. They have black and white PHOTOS of real places with cartoon characters "playing" in these photographed "sets." So, there is, for example a photo of a city block with cartoon people walking down the real sidewalk and Trixie's mom standing on the front steps waving. There is something really fun about this juxtaposition of real and imaginary. I love the luscious art work of many other picture books. These illustrations are not that. They are silly. Profoundly, wonderfully, silly.

I viewed an interview with Mo Willems on you tube and he said that he purposely tried to draw his main characters so SIMPLY that a small child could make a reasonably good drawing of Knuffle Bunny or Trixie themselves, and thus extend their adventures into their own imaginative play.

In Knuffle Bunny Too Trixie is a little older and she and Dad are walking throught the neighborhood on the way to Pre-K at the local school. Trixie is excited to be taking her one-of-a-kind Knuffle Bunny to meet all her friends at school.  When she gets there another girl Sonja has Knuffle Bunny too! "Suddenly, Trixie's one-of-a-kind Knuffle Bunny wasn't so one-of-a-kind anymore."

So many conflicts arise that the teacher takes the bunnies! And returns them at the end of the day. In the middle of the night Trixie realizes "That is not my bunny!" at which point Trixies daddy tried to exaplain what "2:30 a.m." means. Another race through the neighborhood in the middle of the night returns the bunnies to their rightful owners.  And a new friendship is forged!

Knuffle Bunny Free concludes the saga. When Knuffle Bunny is left in an airplane after an international flight. And then miraculously FOUND on the way home. And then even more amazingly, then given to a small baby who was crying on the plane.

The books acknowledgements refer to "The real Trixie and her mommy" and I very much WANT these to be true stories. I searched for the answer to my question (Did this really happen? Is Trixie your little girl? Are YOU the Dad?) In his FAQ someone asks "Are the Knuffle Bunny stories true?" and he replies "They are completely true, except for the parts I make up."