Review of "The Bunny and the Mysterious Butterfly," by Carmel Rivello ISBN 9780996755108

Review of

The Bunny and the Mysterious Butterfly, by Carmel Rivello ISBN 9780996755108

Three out of five stars

 In the modern age of fewer children per household, there are far more only one child households. With no other children in the house, more and more children are without playmates much of the time. This leads to feelings of isolation, one of the most common solutions is to rely on imaginary friends. That is the main point of the book, in this case the friend is not from Earth.

The story itself is not so much off the usual paths of stories for children, a lonely bunny child called Bella wishes for friends and one arrives in the form of a butterfly called Flutter. This is not an ordinary butterfly, but a cosmic being here to aid humans. A spaceship lands and releases a flock of butterflies, birds, bees and bugs to benefit Earth and keep Bella company. The message of relying on your imagination to make up for the lack of playmates is a positive one.

 What is really different about this book is the content of the “About the author” section and the blurbs on the back cover. The author and one of the people quoted on the back claim to have personal experience with other cosmic beings and the other two blurbs strongly hint at the same. While these claims are not explicit in the book, they certainly might alter the perspective of the parent that monitors the books read by and to their children. 

This book was made available for free for review purposes.