As part of my project reading all the Sendak that isn’t Where the Wild Things Are I picked up Ten Little Rabbits again.
And I owe Sendak an apology. My earlier review focused too much on what the book wasn’t (Wild Things), rather than what it is. This second look brought a new appreciation for the quiet wonder of Sendak. The child magician who magicks rabbits into being (first one, then two, and on up to ten) is completely in charge of himself and the situation when he starts. He’s visibly self-satisfied.
He keeps his composure through five rabbits, balancing them and doing his magic almost casually. Starting with rabbit six, though, the boy magician starts to lose control. He loses his alignment, no longer standing fully upright. He loses composure. And he loses control of the visual frame, as the rabbits now dominate. And here’s the thing: he keeps going.
He rabbits on to seven, eight, nine, and ten, becoming progressively less happy and losing progressively more control, until by rabbit ten his face is almost completely hidden. Sendak evokes this self-created chaos with simple, focused drawings.
Lovely.
