Zhaohua Ji

One windy day, a pair of underwear flies off a clothesline and gets blown into the path of a rabbit. The rabbit promptly puts the underwear on his head with his ears through the leg holes and calls it a hat. Other animals try it on with varying degrees of success until a donkey comes along and sets the rabbit straight about what his hat really is. How will the rabbit manage that with his tail?

No! That's wrong! is a charming tale about, well, sticking to your guns. As you may have guessed, show more the rabbit doesn't do very well fitting his tail in the underwear in what is perhaps the funniest spread in the book. So the underwear goes back to being a hat, much to the delight of the other animals - and young readers, as demonstrated by some first grade students in the library the other day who were repeatedly crying "it's UNDERWEAR!" and going into fits of giggles.

Which is exactly what the book is meant to do. The phrase "No, that's wrong" appears on the bottom of every page in which the animals are wearing the underwear as a hat, inciting readers to say the same. Much like Don't let the pigeon drive the bus when readers are to deny the pigeon's repeated and increasingly frantic requests to drive the bus (as with these pages from the book), it encourages direct response to what is happening on the page. Which makes it a lot of fun.

The illustrations are a main component to the fun and are beautiful with oodles of amusing details and visual cues (like the stone path) for how to weave your way through the action on the page. There are sunglasses on the donkey, an adam's apple on the ram, and the pair of underwear isn't just plain old Fruit of the Looms but lacy red underthings which only adds to the hilarity. And whatever you do, don't miss the end pages!

From China via publisher Kane Miller, No! That's wrong! is a winner. show less

I disagree with the great Betsy Bird. Having finally gotten my hands on this book (I think it was in somebody's "catalog when I feel like it because it's going to be a pain" pile - I sure had piles like that as a cataloguer!) I find it is not as wonderful as expected. Funny underwear? Check. Lovely swashy watercolors and cartoony characters? Check. Marvelous expression of self-esteem and sticking to what you know is right....Ummm.

Well, they ARE underpants. Maybe a rabbit can get away with show more wearing them on his head, but I don't see any kids doing that. Actually, one could say it's an example of mass ignorance and peer pressure gone wrong as all the animals insist in supporting the rabbit in his error. Ok, Ok, I'm probably being a little anal (former cataloger here, remember?) but it irritates me when characters who like things to be "right", organized, orderly, etc. are cast as the villains. Organization and style? Uhh. Ok, maybe it's just me, but I read it several times before I got the whole narrator thing.

And when the donkey first appeared, I thought two people were talking, "What are you doing? Why are you wearing underpants on your head? [space] It's not a hat. They're underpants." And really, who says "underpants"? But it is a funny book, maybe I just read it too early in the morning to get it....and I'm probably prejudiced by the whole "support the rabbit in his error and come out looking wonderful" thing. I think we need more books where perfectionists don't realize the errors of their ways and suddenly become all free and arty but where the free arty types realize they can't find anything and the perfectionists were RIGHT ALL ALONG

and

Definitely need more sleep.

Verdict: Buy it if you need more underwear books. And who doesn't?

ISBN: 978-1933605661; Published March 2008 by Kane Miller; Borrowed from the library show less

This is a very funny book about a rabbit who finds a pair of underwear in the forest. Not knowing what it is, the rabbit thinks it is a perfect hat. The other animals try it on and the narrator keeps saying, “No! That’s wrong!” The rabbit finally puts the underwear on the correct way but it’s tail will not fit. It is a silly book with underwear on every page so how could it not be loved by kids!?!

A fun book to read aloud. A rabbit finds a pair on underpants that has flown off the clothes line and thinks it is a hat, after all it does have room for his two ears to stick out of.