Land of the Brave

Title: America the Beautiful
Author: Robert Sabuda • Publisher: Little Simon
Price: ¥4,095 • ISBN: 0-689-84744-0

Robert Sabuda is not just an illustrator, he is a “Master paper engineer.” He is well known for previous hits Uh-Oh, Leonardo!, the Blizzard's Robe, The Christmas Alphabet and many more. In his new work “he has interpreted the classic American anthem America the Beautiful in dazzling dimension”.

Yes, it's a pop-up paean to the United States. Each pop-up page is created in fascinating detail in tasteful starched white card against a strikingly colourful backdrop. You get a pop-up Mt. Rushmore, a pop-up Statue of Liberty, a pop-up space shuttle, a pop-up Great Plains, and so on.

In the last fold, you get a pop-out mini pop-up book - the poem doesn't fit into the preceding 14 pages and we need the extra space to finish it off. The anthem of the title was written by Katherine Lee Bates on July 4th, 1895. It begins with 'O beautiful spacious skies, For amber waves of grain'. It finishes with 'America! America! God shed His grace on thee Till nobler men keep once again thy whiter jubilee!' and a pop-up eagle.

According to the blurb, “America has never looked more spectacular.” Apparently it is also a “stunning keepsake masterpiece”. Nice.

Land of the Bunny Killer

Title: Return of the Bunny Suicides
Author: Andy Riley • Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Price: ¥1,680 • ISBN: 0-340-83403-X

Did you see the Book of Bunny Suicides? Me neither, but I wish I had now that I have seen its sequel, Return of the Bunny Suicides.

Both books are collections of cartoons themed on the absurd suicide attempts of cute little bunnies. Some of the suicide methods depicted are simple in conception, others are ludicrously convoluted or involve Heath Robinson contraptions — all conceived and constructed by the bunnies themselves, all are as cruel as they are funny.

However, the unrelenting daftness keeps the project from ever becoming morbid. The effect is probably helped by he fact that the floppy-eared ones immolating themselves bear a more than passing resemblance to a certain cute little cartoon rabbit that is familiar to you, and they all meet their fates with the same impassively cute stare.

The cartoons are almost entirely without text making them accessible across language divides. The perpetrator of these books is one Andy Riley, author or cartoonist of many comedy books, TV shows and even a forthcoming Disney animation. If he does to the Disney fauna what he does to these rabbits, I shall camp out for the premier.

Book Reviews by Chris Page

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