Lawson’s writing is simple, innocent, and focused on an idyllic lifestyle. However, Caruso brought life to a story I might have otherwise found lacking due to my modern expectations. I love the audiobook narrator! Barbara Caruso’s vivid and animated reading helped me connect strongly with this older style of writing.At first, I felt like the story dragged. While I found the introduction of all the characters tedious, Lawson establishes this is a strong, if poor, community who all have their place and work equally to support each other. The single-dimensionality of these characters allows Lawson to introduce many characters easily without confusing the plot of the story. My favorite characters are Mole, blind and fiercely loyal to Willie the field mouse, as well as Father Rabbit who is a proper Southern Gentleman and Little Georgie, his son. Each character is unique and memorable, if completely one-sided.
Rabbit Hill features a wide cast of anthropomorphic characters but focuses mostly on a family of rabbits. The community is both excited and apprehensive as a new family moving into the big house looms in the future.Is this new family going to farm and tend the plants and leave the animals alone? Or are they going to bring dogs and guns and traps for this destitute community? Only time will tell. They have had to work together in strange ways to survive. They have had to roam far and wide to find food. The last few years when the house was empty had been hard on the community. An abandoned Connecticut farm was recently purchased and new folks are moving in. “New Folks comin’, oh my!” is the cry amongst the animal community.
With this in the back of my head, I picked up Rabbit Hill and was pleasantly shocked with how Lawson addressed these concerns head-on while still appealing to a youthful audience. Post-Great Depression and Post-War, life is not returning to what it was and American citizens were afraid for their future. The armed forces are integrating back into life in the States. P ublished in 1944, in the waning days of World War II, Lawson’s seemingly idyllic children’s book is obviously a product of that time.The Allies have agreed to help rebuild Europe. On my quest to read all the Newbery award winners I have picked up Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson.
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