Fuzz McFlops

This is a book whose textually playful tale of an anxious scatter-brained poetic rabbit hero ends up revealing a rather didactic purpose. At first sight this tale, translated from the Portuguese and winner of Brazil’s Jabuti Prize, seems to have the stamp of more familiar work by Scieszka or the Ahlbergs, with instruction manuals, poems and letters, stories, a recipe, a musical score and a post card all helping to relate the tale of the love of a persistent fan of our reclusive lop-sided rabbit poet and how she frees him from his anxiety of being different and brings a more cheerful aspect to his life. However, after the story itself comes a 14-page ‘post script’ in which the nature and usual purpose of each of these elements is explained as particular forms of textual communication, rather as if the story had become part of an implied lesson plan, a form of textual communication which the book does not explain. The book’s production leaves something to be desired, too. It’s in a format that seems too small for the content and some of the text, particularly in a few of the ‘inserts’, is not comfortable to read. It’s all a bit cramped and poorly designed.