"The Magic Rabbit" is a surprisingly hip children's picture book about a young magician named Ray and his "business partner" - the white rabbit who appears from his top hat in a spray of glittering stars. Ray and his bunny "were also best friends," writes author-illustrator Annette LeBlanc Cate, with some cute sketches showing their life together. They share a bowl of popcorn while curled up in an easy chair watching television, and both the bunny and Ray are drawn with smiles on their faces. But one day Ray takes the bunny downtown where he performs as a street magician - and his hat (and its bunny) gets knocked over by another street performer who's riding backwards on a unicycle!
For the rest of the book, the little bunny is lost in the big city in what turns out to be a very urban story. There's traffic in the street and people in the park - and then the sun goes down, and the cityscape becomes dark and shadowy. "Bunny wandered along the dark street, thinking of Ray and wishing that they were sitting down to dinner together right now..." Instead of being lost in a dark and spooky forest, this book offers a more original story with a bunny's-eye view of the city!
The tone of the book is set by its illustrations, which are simple pen and ink drawings They have a very personal feeling, as though they're the polished up versions of cartoons from the artist's own sketchbook. The artwork captures all the clutter in Ray's apartment, like a box labeled "stuff for show," and Cate also draws a believable crowd of city dwellers who watch Ray performing downtown. But there's also a mystery to the black and white color scheme which fits well with this story of a magician.
And because the book's author is also the illustrator, she's able to solve the rabbit's dilemma with a nice artistic touch. Resting in a dark alley, the bunny spots a bag of popcorn - which Ray always knew was the bunny's favorite. And next to the popcorn is one of the glittering stars that used to topple out of Ray's hat. The illustrations are magically touched with a bright yellow to show the stars shining up from the black-and-white shadows of the sidewalk at night. The bunny hops after the path of stars, and it leads him back to his friend Ray.