This denouement is enough to give you goose bumps, and young readers may be wiping the tears from their parents’ cheeks. Good night, Knuffle Bunny.” — Booklist (starred review)

This denouement is enough to give you goose bumps, and young readers may be wiping the tears from their parents’ cheeks. Good night, Knuffle Bunny.

"This denouement is enough to give you goose bumps, and young readers may be wiping the tears from their parents’ cheeks. Good night, Knuffle Bunny."

Having survived a trip through the dryer and a horrific case of mistaken identity, Knuffle Bunny and Trixie are headed for Holland to visit Trixie's Oma and Opa. This means a whole lot of waiting before "(finally) getting onto a real airplane!" It will surprise none of their fans that, once at Oma and Opa's, "Trixie realize[s] something!" Alas, retrieving a forgotten bunny from a China-bound airliner proves impossible, even for daddy. Willems uses his arresting technique of digitally placing full-color cartoons in black-and-white photographs against muted negative space, and his pacing is as pitch-perfect as ever. But this is a tale of a girl who's growing up, and, just as Trixie's lip doesn't quiver quite so much, the emotional arc here is flattened. "She was getting bigger. / Even if she wished she wasn't." This feels more like a book for parents than children, a feeling underscored by the coda, an illustrated note to Trixie from her daddy that imagines her growing up and starting a family of her own. It's a whole lot more palatable than Love You Forever, but still—maybe it would have been better for the fictional Trixie not to grow up. (Picture book. Adult)