Daddy cuddle by Kate Mayes

Ill. Sara Acton. ABC Books, 2015. ISBN 9780733334054
(Age: pre school) Recommended. Rabbits, Family, Fathers. Each morning the baby rabbit wakes, but not slowly or gently, his eyes ping open and he goes off in search of his father. A familiar scenario follows in which daddy, warmly snuggled up in bed ignores all his baby's overtures. He brings a ball, a kite, his toothbrush, mobile phone leaving them all around the floor of the bedroom, until he finally calls out loudly, 'Wake up Daddy!'
Daddy finally responds lifting his offspring into the warm bed with him, kissing, snuggling and cuddling him as they both fall to sleep.
This book thrills with the expectations of the baby rabbit going into his father's bedroom ready to play. He tries a range of things to wake his father finally finding something that his father wants to do, cuddle him back to sleep. Children will recognsie the different approaches of baby and parent, easily sympathise with Dad just wanting to sleep and with the baby wanting his father's attention.
Sara Acton's watercolour and pen drawings suit the story admirably, the soft edges of her pictures reflecting the soft warm relationship between baby and Dad. And I love the use of the endpapers, with a reprise of baby's efforts to rouse Dad at the start, and ending with them doing something loud and active to finish.
Fran Knight