Little Trixie’s trip to the Laundromat turns comi-tragic when her beloved stuffed animal, Knuffle Bunny, disappears. Trixie, whose verbal skills are still incomprehensible to adults, can’t make her daddy understand that Knuffle Bunny is gone (“Aggle Flaggle Klabble!”). Finally, Trixie has no choice but to throw a tantrum (“She went boneless.”). Mom finally figures out the problem, and Dad is the hero at the end of this hilarious picture book that isn’t without deeper resonance. What child hasn’t known the frustration of not being understood? Willems’s lighthearted look at parent-toddler dynamics never makes light of a child’s effort to communicate. The streamlined text is paired with marvelous art that shows Trixie, her parents, and the people in their neighborhood as highly expressive, cartoonlike characters set against sepia-toned black-and-white photographs of the urban setting in which they live. Astute observers will have noticed early on what happened to Knuffle Bunny. Honor Book, 2005 Charlotte Zolotow Award (Ages 2–6)