Saturday, November 24, 2012

Rabbit Hill, Newbery Winner 1944


I know, it's been a long while since I've written anything, but I've kept pretty busy with school work. Anyway, I took the holiday weekend as an opportunity to breeze through this short work.
Rabbit Hill was written by Robert Lawson who, though a prolific author, isn't very famous today. His only other work that I had heard of was Ben and I. I had seen his illustrations before in The Story of Ferdinand and Mr. Popper's Penguins.
The problem I found with this book is that it is quite obviously dated. Mind you it is still enjoyable in it's own fashion but I have no idea what demographic I recommend it for; I enjoyed it and I think that my brother may begrudgingly find amusement in it, but we also had several of the old talking animal stories read to us as children, far more than I see with my peers or younger children. For instance, I found some of the best bedtime stories in this book:
Raise your hand if you remember this.
 
No one I know has even heard of Uncle Wiggily, whom my young mind believed to be as important as Winnie the Pooh. Turns out Uncle Wiggily was popular in the 1910s - 30s. There was even a school reader!
However, I just cannot think of any child today who is both willing to enjoy a simple story such as Robert Lawson has penned and verbose enough to comprehend the dialogue of the characters.

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