For example, don't miss the title page where you read the sweet sentiment from Alex's grandmother, obviously a grandmother out of touch with her grandson's preferences, or the first page of the story, seemingly unedited, until you look at the illustration and you notice the picture on the wall of a mother bunny leaning over the bed of two rabbits with the words "Drink your poison" written above. But when my wife read "Battle Bunny" for bedtime story that night, it caught the attention of my 7-year-old son and even managed to entice him away from his "Annoying Orange" graphic novels (which I happen to despise).

This is an example of exactly how kids are told not to interact with their books—and that’s what makes it so effective. Yes you're going to have loads of them, but it's nice to have subtle differences between each squad.

The animals of the forest become luchadores and ninja warriors; Air Force One and a few presidents (Obama and Lincoln) make appearances; and just about everything explodes.

The first time I read this book, I fell in love with it and its clever, subversive changing of a benign and rather trite birthday book into a story of an evil rabbit and his plan to destroy the forest. Matt has illustrated many other books for children, including Battle Bunny, A Dog Named Doug, and the Infamous Ratsos series. Imagine your 7-year-old taking a pencil and creatively "editing" a children's book about a cutesy, woodland rabbit's birthday surprise party, and you have the premise for Scieszka and Barnett's wonderfully subversive (and intensely clever) "Battle Bunny. There are two stories running at the same time and even as an adult reader I found the book a little confusing. I wish I was teaching in a classroom because it would have been a book that I would have brought into the classroom to share with kids (yes, even my middle schoolers.Birthday Bunny becomes Battle Bunny, and the rabbit's innocent journey through the forest morphs into a supersecret mission to unleash an evil plan - a plan that only Alex can stop. He illustrated two books, one in the old fashioned “Golden Book” style we all are familiar with and one in the illustrations of a small, defiant, talented book vandal! I'm sure many others from my generation will, like me, be immediately reminded of Strong Bad's "Everyone is Different.

Battle Bunny looks for all the world like a run-of-the-mill, bland and slightly sentimental early reader which its boy owner has outgrown and which he has imaginatively and extensively altered to tell a story that he finds much more exciting and in which he has a starring role. Even the first shot of the bunny hero of this book, which an initial glance would appear to be free of Alex’s shenanigans, hides a couple “improvements” here and there. Both the original Birthday Bunny and Alix’s adaptation are so convincingly realised, down to the illustration style and colour palette of the ‘original’ and its frayed edges, and the naïve anarchy of the inscribed story, that I can imagine unwary library staff being dismayed at the inspired felt pen crossings out and additions.

Battle Bunny is the type of children’s book that sounds great when discussing the concept, but is difficult to execute well. The little boy who received Birthday Bunny was seriously unimpressed, so much so that he has taken out his pencils and rewritten the story. The new era has begun, and every single one of you Kalista players and reddit users will be able to experience it. I want to make a massive gunline with flintlock rifles who were farmers or blacksmiths a few weeks before, truly the bravest of us.

I think format stuff will probably keep this off both Newbery and Caldecott lists, and probably Geisel too, but it deserves a wide readership. I would recommend this book to children ages five and up since the writing style might confuse some children. You can have duardin, elves and humans all in one army, with all the weird creatures that comes with it.As a child, I was prone to such flights of fantasy so the drawings ring true, if a little disturbingly. Units within a certain distance of a commander untit (depending on race) can then perform extra actions depending on their race. Definitely one for reluctant readers who might like to see that books are not always what they are seen as being.