Not a Box
This engaging, brown paper-wrapped picture book answers the simplest of childhood questions: “Why are you sitting in that box?” “It’s not a box!” replies the imaginative rabbit, who instead shows the reader how his box is, instead, a robot costume, a burning building, a tugboat, a crow’s nest on a pirate ship (!), a hot-air balloon—ANYTHING but a box! Illustrated with simple line drawings—reminiscent of Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon—Not a Box is a story guaranteed to send readers running to discover what their own ‘not-a-box’ can be!
Pennsylvania Center for the Book Awards
Book Activities & Discussion Ideas
Draw some squares on blank sheets of paper. Encourage children to draw around the boxes and create their own ‘Not-a-Box’ illustrations.
Read this book in tandem with Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon. Discuss the similarities between the two books, including the use of imagination. What does Harold imagine? What does the bunny imagine?
Take a large packing box and take turns seeing how many different things everyone can pretend it is! How many ideas can everyone come up with?