Antoinette Portis has created a simple picture book that illustrates the complexity of a child's imagination. The young bunny is drawn in various activities involving a plain cardboard box. The unseen questioner asks questions such as, "Why are you sitting in a box?" These questions are accompanied by black and white illustrations of just the bunny and the box. Turn the page and the bunny answers, "It's not a box." The answer is paired with the same illustration with the addition of red ink to show what the bunny is imagining. The question and answer format is carried throughout the book to show the numerous possibilities for a basic cardboard box and a child's active, limitless imagination. Using minimal text and color, NOT A BOX is a book to be read by all. Read it aloud to your young children; let early readers explore it on their own; and as an adult, read it to remember when you were free to make a cardboard box into a race car, a rocket ship or a mansion just with the magic of your imagination.
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