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Writer's pictureMelinda Cropsey

Breadcrumbs Best Book: The Rabbit Listened, by Cori Doerrfeld


(2018) Dial Books for Young Readers, Penguin Random House, New York, NY.

I have an impressive stack of books in my Best Book blog pile… and once in a while a book comes to my attention that leaps to the TOP!  In this case it was a gift from a very special young woman —THANK YOU, Hannah, for The Rabbit Listened.


Life is full of ups and downs.  One of the primary objectives of any social-emotional curriculum is to help children develop appropriate tools to process “upset” and return to their natural “pre-set” with relative ease.  At one of our first Breadcrumbs workshops, the children created a rhyming label for difficult feelings and emotions: “The Sad, Mad and Bad Ones”.  In The Rabbit Listened, a young boy is presented with a situation that triggers “All of the Above.”


One after another, a group of empathetic animals offer the boy a range of options for dealing with his upset... “talk about it”, “shout about it”, “pretend it didn’t happen”... eventually the warmth, gentle touch, and sympathetic ears of a rabbit friend, inspire an exciting new beginning.  This book is the perfect springboard for conversations about how best to deal with life’s inevitable set-backs and challenges, and a “must have” for any SEL Library. (Ages 4-8)

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