I Do Not Like Al’s Hat

Herb, a magician’s rabbit, tries to find a new gig in McGill’s first solo picture book. “I do like the spotlight. I do like the applause. And I do like the carrots,” Herb confesses, but constantly being stuffed into and yanked out of Abracadabra Al’s hat has taken a toll on his ears, which he carefully bandages up before hitting the road. Sitting at a juice bar, Herb contemplates life as a wild rabbit (as part of a bunny biker gang) and a veggie farmer, but neither imagined scenario goes well. That leaves a job as a pet rabbit, and after answering a classified ad placed by a four-year-old named Sophie, Herb finds the home he’s been seeking. McGill brings a lot of energy to her scraggly mixed-media collages, but the compositions can be busy or hard to decipher—when Herb realizes that he isn’t “cut out for the wild life,” he’s shown sprawled out on the ground beside his motorcycle, but it’s not really clear what happened. Although Herb’s pared-down narration should prove encouraging to emerging readers, Herb never gets much of a personality. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)