Starred Review ALA Booklist (Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2016)

Starred Review Josette Bobette, of 9 Rue Laffette, and her beloved pet rabbit, Pepette, have a big problem: of all the family portraits in the Bobettes' great room om stoic grand-mère and grand-père to froufrou family schnoodle, Frizette pette's is nowhere in sight. Determined to find an artist who can perfectly capture Pepette's brilliance, Josette and her bunny take to the bustling Montmartre of 1920s Paris. There they stumble upon four unnamed but prominent artists n you guess who? The first, intrigued by Pepette's "majestic ears," reimagines the rabbit with three of them, all sharply geometric, as well as two noses and whiskers as wide as the canvas. The second, a distinctly mustachioed man, pleads to paint "the very essence of her rabbitness," and in his final product, Pepette's elongated body droops from a square surface. A third painter, astonished by the bunny's nose ike a faint star" rtrays Pepette soaring through clouds. Finally, a fourth, bespectacled painter envisions a rosy Pepette against a color-splashed backdrop. It isn't until Josette gently chides the artist's vision ("Pepette isn't pink") that she learns a most important lesson. Fletcher's illustrations are subtle, sweet, and sprawling, and each artist's exuberant declarations are ideal for reading aloud. Just as Pepette's portrait belongs in the Bobettes' great room, this belongs on any bookshelf. Brief back matter explains the famous-artist cameos.

Kirkus Reviews

Seeking a formal portrait of her rabbit, a Parisian girl meets several artists.Josette's upper-class home has portraits of all her family members (all white, and none of whom appear otherwise), but there's no portrait of Pepette, the stuffed rabbit she carries everywhere. Josette walks to Montmartre, the bustling outdoor square "where the best artists in Paris painted." Four adult male artists try their hands at painting Pepette. One gives her two noses and three ears; one makes her look droopy; one shows her flying through the sky; and the final one, to Josette's confusion, sees Pepette as being brightly colored. This is the 1920s, and adults will recognize the painters as Picasso, Dalí, Chagall, and Matisse. Here Fletcher misses an opportunity: while each portrait does feature known traits of its master—in addition to having extra features, Picasso's cubist Pepette is angular, for instance—the portraits' styles and colors don't jump off the page as distinct from the illustrations overall. Confusingly, Matisse's Pepette isn't even really pink, as the text claims she is—she's nearly the same color as her most accurate portraitist shows her to be, when that person reveals herself. Still, the illustrations are lovely, using daubed and layered watercolors with loose lines to create light, airy scenes that invite long savoring.A mild introduction to painting masters' styles, with elegantly appealing artwork of its own. (author's note) (Picture book. 4-8)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Lodding (A Gift for Mama) and Fletcher (Look at Me, Grandma) transport readers to 1920s Paris as a girl and her cherished stuffed rabbit, Pepette, pay a visit to the bustling Montmartre district. Perusing the family portraits in her Parisian home, Josette decides that Pepette deserves a portrait of her own. In Montmartre, several (now-well-known) painters declare their infatuation with Pepette and ask to recreate her likeness on canvas, but the results don-t please Josette-or Pepette. Picasso gives the rabbit three ears and two noses, Dalí renders her -droopy,- Chagall sends her flying through the clouds, and Matisse paints her pink, insisting that -through art we can see the world any way we want.- Unimpressed, Josette taps into her own creativity to paint Pepette herself. Fletcher-s paintings have a loose, dappled quality as she elegantly evokes the fictional characters, the real-life artists, their work, and Paris itself. The artists are not identified in the book, only mentioned in passing in an author-s note, so adult readers will likely need to provide context. Ages 4-8. (June)