Watership Down

About half the size and nearly twice as epic as J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal The Lord of the Rings, this tale of a rabbit clan in search of a new home and their defense of it thereafter rocked my middle-school mind and has scarcely left it since. 

From the canny Hazel to the delightfully brash Bigwig to the terrifying General Woundwort, Adams made sure to populate his grand lapine journey with compelling heroes, striking villains, and a mammoth mythology that takes you deep into their world.

It was the first book that I actively felt winded upon finishing, having been… show more.

While the rabbits and habitats in this book were unfamiliar (southeastern US rabbits do not live in warrens, and I’ve never seen a down), the personalities and perils rang true during my anxious teen years. This book showed me my own strangeness and reluctance to lead, my own flight toward a place that might feel safe and secure.

Many readings later, I’ve adopted rabbit words into my vocabulary and plan to someday name a pet Bigwig. (I’ve yet to find a cat or dog with the right personality, but I know the time will come.) Yes, it’s about rabbits. But… show more.

I read this children’s classic as an adult and loved it for the many reasons that both adults and children love this book: the characters, the adventures, and the deep satisfaction of imagining oneself as an animal that is not a human animal. For me, especially, the entrance into the world of European rabbits was extraordinary.

Where I live, we have desert cottontails and black-tailed jackrabbits (a species of hare), but our lagomorphs do not live in warrens or social groups. This is a story you can give yourself up to and live in, forgetting your own life and daily… show more.

I’m an animal lover, and a book about really smart, interesting, brave, adventurous…rabbits!...had me hooked from the start.

What’s also really great is how the authors were able to impart a good deal of real-world knowledge about the habits of rabbits and habitats that rabbits favor while at the same time unspooling a really fine adventure story. 

Imagine the Iliad, only with bunny rabbits.

Watership Down is one of those novels that really shouldn’t work at all. It has what on first glance would look like a trivial or even a ridiculous premise – it’s about rabbits; some of them with psychic powers, for Pete’s sake – but it is done with such conviction, written so beautifully, and imagined so fully that it’s nothing short of majestic. There is real violence and peril in it, and there is sublime pathos too.

It tells about loyalty, leadership, ingenuity, courage, and trauma, and it persuades you to take… show more.

At first glance, it appears to be a book about rabbits but it’s much more about humanity.

Watership Down was my childhood favorite story. Its themes of home, overcoming incredible obstacles, and finding a few good friends along the way are lessons I still carry with me. When I first read it as a young boy, I was lost in the gaps of the foster care system.

This book gave me a vision – and a plan – for how to overcome it. Those lessons apply to all of us and are desperately needed in a world that too often… show more.

Though I am an animal lover, and when I first heard about this book, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. I had expected something light and fluffy. OMG! The animal characters and the darkness of the tale (Tail?) drew me in like a cold winter's breath. When I wrote my first book my memory of Watership Down, helped me ease my characters down some pretty dark alleys.

Another of my selections is a literacy classic for children, Watership Down, a book that had me entranced when I was young. We follow an adventure where a group of rabbits is searching for a new home after Fiver realizes there is a great danger to their home warren. The book encompasses an idyllic rural landscape and a story that is emotionally moving as this brave band of rabbits face many challenges in their search for a new life and new beginnings.  

I had a pet rabbit that died when I was a kid. Ever since then, I’ve had an affinity for small hopping mammals. So, when an animated film about rabbits popped on my TV screen, I was hooked. But the book the movie is based on, Watership Down, is so much deeper than your average children’s yarn. It’s one of those books that forces you to ask, “how did something like this get published?” While seemingly meant for children, Richard Adams tackles heavy-handed material like war, death, and love—and he does it all through the eyes of rabbits. I… show more.

As I look at this book where it sits on the kitchen table across from me, I can feel my nose and eyes prickling with tears. It is so sad. But I am convinced that reading sad books, especially when they are so brilliantly written, can be helpful for processing those feelings. I love the character of Fiver who has a special sense of what’s coming. My mum had a dog called Sheba who always knew when mum was on her way home and would suddenly jump out of her bed and wait by the front door. Five minutes later,… show more.