An Easter story about a soccer-crazy bunny will keep readers hopping with delight.

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Wilhelm, H., Huovi, H., & International Children's Digital Library. (1994). Pupujussi pulassa. Helsinki: Lasten parhaat kirjat.

Illustrations successfully tell the story of a family of bunnies and their battle with a group of foxes. Drawn in a Disneyesque style, the illustrations show a sequence of events where a birthday boy bunny—a soccer lover—helps thwart an attack on his family from foxes. The text is completely supported by the illustrations, since it is written in Finnish and knowing no Finnish, I think I understood the action on each page. The foxes are egged, have paint spilled on them and are ultimately chased by a bull who lives in a nearby barn—awakened by the soccer ball purposely thrown by the hero bunny. Target audience would be preschool-1st grade. No awards known. ( )

Wilhelm, Hans. Gol de Federico! (1996). Barcelona: Editorial Andres Bello.
This book is written in Spanish. I’ll describe what I understood of the story based on the illustrations. Federico, a bunny, plays soccer with his bunny friends, but when he gets home, he gets in trouble with his mom because he is almost late for his birthday party. She sends him upstairs to clean up and get dressed for the party. At the party he blows on one of the cakes, and his mom and the rest of the family are appalled. He goes to his mom’s craft room, where she is in the middle of an egg-decorating project, and kicks his ball in the air and knocks down a pail of paint. Foxes come to the house and the bunnies run inside to barricade them out. Federico thinks quickly and throws a bowl of eggs and pails of paint down from the 2nd floor window onto the foxes, making them slip and fall. This only stops them for a moment, so Federico kicks his soccer ball away from the house and the foxes run after it. Unfortunately, he kicked it toward the barn, and the barn animals run from the foxes; all except an angry bull who breaks out of his pen and chases the foxes away. The bunny family sings happily and appreciates Federico and his soccer ball. They all end the day playing soccer.

This is a very humorous and exciting story that young elementary students will enjoy. The illustrations are somewhat detailed and realistic. They're in softly muted watercolors, giving the feeling that nothing bad will really happen in the story. The pictures on each page show everything that happens in the story and one can understand
the story fairly well by looking at the pictures without reading the words. I read the book in English after looking at the Spanish version, and found that just by looking at the pictures I made only a few mistakes: the party was for Federico’s sister, he spit on the cake, and he deliberately kicked the soccer ball to the barn to irritate the bull into attacking the foxes. ( )

Kindergarten children LOVE these stories about Ralph.