Things have been hard for all the small animals. The prior owners of the house did not take care of their property and there was little food to be had. With the house having been vacant for some time, there has been little to eat for the creatures. But there is good news, new folks are coming. Much time is spent speculating as to whether or not the new folks will be the right kind of folks and whether things will change for the better, but all speculation is put to rest when the new family arrives. Things have indeed changed for the better. There are of course, some unexpected sadnesses, but ultimately life is much better on Rabbit Hill.
This is a sweet, slow, old-fashioned book. The vocabulary is incredibly difficult at times, and the interest level is well below the reading level, so it is likely to be best used as a read aloud, with a grown-up safe at hand to clear up and confusion at the difficult words. Just in case you need to look up the difficult words yourself, a sampling is below.
Vocabulary: auspicious, felicitous, shiftless, hearsay, renaissance, cherished, shrilly, leeward, indignantly, perished, diabolical, husbanding, straitened, provender, inherent, indubitably, propitious, codger, aspersions, dassent, gentilities, impertinent, hypocritical, scoundrel, tetched, tarapaulins,
Sex, Nudity, Dating – None.
Profanity – “tarnation,” “blasted,” “dingblasted,” “gumdinged,” “Oh Lord,” “queer” is used several times in the old-fashioned sense, meaning odd, the animals hear “a man’s Curse” and a woman says things “no lady should ever say.”
Death, Violence and Gore – A rabbit leads dogs that were chasing it to an electric fence. There’s no mention of what happens at the fence, whether the dogs backed off, or shocked lightly or worse. Animals worry about traps, poison, explosives, shotguns and rifles. Some rabbits were once killed by a man who put the exhaust pipe of his car down into a burrow. There’s a brief discussion of the deaths of bunnies by other animals and an illustration of a bunny sitting by bunny gravestones. There’s a mention of how a long time ago the redcoats came and people were shooting at them. Rabbits are wary of moving vans since a rabbit died because of one. One animal knew someone who read a lot of books, but he “died a couple of years ago.” Fox and skunk eat chickens. A rabbit is hit by a car. Another rabbit brags about how he used to run in front of cars and make them crash. A rabbit worries that the humans are torturing another rabbit. The rabbits worry a gallows is being built to hang a rabbit.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – Uncle Analdas smokes tobacco. A man smokes a pipe.
Frightening or Intense Things – None.
