By Kate DiCamillo
A proud china rabbit is lost at sea and passed from stranger to stranger for years, learning to love the hard way.
Edward Tulane is a china rabbit with silk suits and a very high opinion of himself, owned by a girl named Abilene who adores him. He doesn't love her back — he doesn't really love anyone. Then he tumbles overboard off an ocean liner and sinks to the bottom of the sea. What follows is years of being lost and found and lost again: a fisherman's wife, a hobo and his dog, a sick little girl. Each new pair of hands leaves Edward a little more able to love, and a little more broken by it.
It has the bones of a fairy tale — a living toy, a long road home — but no magic ever does the work. Edward doesn't cast a spell or get a wish granted. He just gets carried from one set of arms to the next, and the only thing that changes is his heart. DiCamillo writes short, clean chapters that go down easily, and Bagram Ibatoulline's full-color plates are genuinely beautiful. The reading itself is well within reach for a 7-to-10-year-old. It's the feelings that ask more.