I checked this book out for an assignment last year but ended up not using it. I'm really glad I came back and read it. 

I love the Dillons. Their illustrations are always so beautiful. There was no reaching for words for less used letters like you so often see in alphabet books. I really liked the inclusion of the map to see where each people comes from and the brief insight to their traditions. I wish there were more information on both the people and their traditions but then it would be a different book. 

A fun cumulative tale. I love everything the Dillons illustrate. 

My wife bought herself this book back in college, having fallen in love with the illustrations and the story, and then she waited twenty years until she had a kid who could appreciate the book as much as she did. Well, that's finally happened: our about-to-be-4-year-old son, Henry, has picked this as his bedtime story four nights running.

Who's in Rabbit's House is a story within a story, or rather, a play within a story. Masai actors wear whimsical, colorful animal masks and act out the story of what happens when Rabbit comes home to find a monster in her house. "I am the Long One! I eat trees and trample on elephants!" says the monster. Pretty fierce, right? Rabbit enlists Leopard, Elephant, and Rhino to help get rid of The Long One, but it is the little green Frog that saves the day, with the obvious moral that intelligence is often more important than size or brute strength (and also, when the  monster's identity is revealed, the folly of making assumptions based on too little information).

written by Patricia C McKissack, illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon

Maybe the most beautiful picture book I've ever read in my life. Seriously, the words, the illustrations, the pictures, everything about this book is fantastic.

written by Katherine Patterson, illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon

I keep seeing that this story is a retelling of a famous Japanese folktale, but I cannot find any other sources for this story. There is a Japanese folktale about mandarin ducks, but it's very different from the story in this book.

There's also just something about the story (the text more than the illustrations) that bothers me. I can't quite pin it down though.