4 out of 4 stars
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The Oregon Kids: Runaway Whiskers by Bob Richley is an illustrated children's book that tells the story of Billy (9) and Autumn (6), two siblings who live in a small suburb of Oregon. One day, after visiting a petting zoo, Autumn dreamed about having a pet bunny of her own. She'd always loved animals but had no pets and bunnies were her favorite!
By pure coincidence, a little girl named Johanna who lived nearby ended up being surprised with a pet bunny by her father. She loved her dearly and named her Whiskers. Whiskers was kept in the garage in a cage and Johanna came and played with her every day. One day, Johanna went in the garage to play with Whiskers to find that the cage was open and Whiskers was gone! Johanna was crushed, and all she could do was hope that someone would find her and bring her back.
At that moment, Autumn was outside playing with her brother Billy. As luck would have it, Whiskers ran by and Autumn found her! Autumn wanted nothing more than to keep the bunny, but Billy and her father agreed they had to bring Whiskers back.
Runaway Whiskers, like many children's books, teaches a lesson - no matter how badly we want something, if it belongs to someone else we need to return it. Autumn wanted nothing more than a bunny, and it's easy to think that wanting one so badly and then having one randomly appear would be a blessing. It was no surprise, then, that Autumn didn't want to give Whiskers up. After he father explained that if Autumn had a pet that she loved dearly and it ran away she would want someone to return it she understood. In Autumn's case, she ends up losing a bunny but gains a new friend, and perhaps even more as the book goes on...
The illustrations in Runaway Whiskers are great. The cover is a perfect example - the image of the girl crying in her mom's arms is actually from the page where Johanna finds out Whiskers is gone. The facial expressions are sweet, and there are a few instances where it's impossible not to feel sad for Johanna or happy for the kids while they play. The book is formatted into dual-page images - there's one single image across both pages and the text is in white on the right page. This held true the entire book with one exception - there was one page where the image on the left side didn't match the right, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't figure out why that background was chosen.
Runaway Whiskers is also the second book in "The Oregon Kids" series. The first, The Oregon Kids: The Big Catch was (I'm 99% sure but can't verify) an Online Book Club book of the day in the past. My review file (a .mobi file) for this book included a few pages of The Big Catch, and it reminded me of how silly and fun that book seemed. Although this is the second book of the series, it stands alone perfectly as well.
Between the excellent illustrations and a sweet, relatable story that tells an excellent lesson, my rating of The Oregon Kids: Runaway Whiskers by Bob Richley is 4 out of 4 stars. While some of the images could perhaps have used a bit more detail and the text was a bit small at times to fit on one page it's a fun, adorable children's book. On the Amazon page the recommended grade level is K-3 and I'd definitely agree, although I'd also add that any child getting a pet for the first time or who happens to find a missing pet (or wallet or anything else they really want but isn't theirs) could use this story.
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The Oregon Kids
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Books with sweet, relatable story that tells excellent lessons are always good to read.
Great book to read mostly for our youth and children... theres allot of life lesson to learn...keep it up...
