Jasper’s eyes play tricks on him (or do they?), as he sees the veggies’ menacing reflections in the bathroom mirror, silhouettes on the bedroom wall, shapes on the shelves in the shed. Carrots seem to be “creeping” up on him everywhere he goes. Everything changes when he senses that he is being followed. He “pulled,” “yanked,” and “ripped” them out before greedily gorging. He raids Crackenhopper Field several times a day, and his manner shows no regard for the vegetables’ feelings. Jasper Rabbit’s craving for carrots is insatiable. Contrast this with the equally hilarious moat and bunnies in Candace Fleming’s Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! (Atheneum, 2002).- Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library This age-appropriate horror story takes children’s fears seriously and then offers them an escape through genuine comic relief. Little does he know that the carrots are cheering on the other side of the fence at the success of their plan to keep the herbivore out. Panels in varying sizes and multiple perspectives keep pace with Reynolds’s tongue-in-cheek narrative as Jasper solves his problem by building a fortress, complete with an alligator-filled moat, around the offending plants. The scenes are rendered in black, white, and gray-except for the carrots and the objects that stand in for them when Jasper does his double takes: these are all orange. Brown’s panels-bordered in black, drawn in pencil, and digitally composed and colored-cleverly combine the mood of film noir with the low-tech look of early children’s television staging for an aesthetic that is atmospheric, but not overwhelming.
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