YOU'RE FINALLY HERE!

“You’re finally here!” Bunny shouts; his excitement knows no bounds until he thinks to demand, “But where were you?” Testily, he lets readers know how long he’s been waiting and how totally bored he got (the bore-o-meter reads, “Bored up to my ears!!!”). Concerned they might be getting off on the wrong foot, he moves back to celebration! Until he asks, “But seriously, where were you?” and he lectures readers on unfairness…and lets them know how annoying it is to have to wait…and just how rude they’ve been. He’s willing to forgive and forget—if readers are willing to sign a contract stating they’ll stay “forever and ever.” Just as he starts to celebrate the signing of the contract, his cell phone rings. It’s a call he has to take; “hold that thought.... No, no, I'm not busy at all....” Watt introduces another saucy critter to the fourth-wall–breaking menagerie that includes her own Chester the cat and Mo Willems’ Pigeon and adds a pointed lecture on cell-phone etiquette to the book-about-a-book conceit. The computer-generated bunny is in-your-face, manga adorable, but as the page compositions largely consist of Bunny alternately glaring and grinning at readers against a wood-grained background and speech balloons, a certain tedium develops before the twist at the end. A good-but-not-great entry in the meta–picture-book genre. (Picture book. 3-6)