RABBIT AND THE MOON

Wood (The Windigo's Return, 1996) retells a Cree legend that explains not only why there's a rabbit in the moon, but how the whooping crane came to have long legs and a red blaze on his head. After repeated efforts to reach the moon on his own, Rabbit asks the birds to carry him. All but Crane laugh him off. The two set out, and reach their goal only after a long and terrifying flight, with Rabbit hanging on to Crane's legs so tightly that his paws become bloody (even as he stretches the bird's legs). In gratitude, Rabbit stains Crane's crown with blood—visible to this day. Though Wood pays homage to Rabbit as a trickster in the source note, there's no mischief in the story and Rabbit is portrayed as polite and unassuming. Baker's watercolors are another disappointment; Rabbit's limbs change length and proportions unpredictably, so that sometimes his shape is that of a natural-looking rabbit, and other times that of a human child in a fur suit. (Picture book/folklore. 7-9)