Easter is almost here, and I’ve been thinking lately about how rabbits are such a common theme in so many children’s books - from the works of Beatrix Potter to The Velveteen Rabbit, Goodnight Moon, Guess How Much I Love You, The Runaway Bunny, Alice in Wonderland and beyond, it seems like there’s a surplus of fluffy bunny characters.
The easy explanation to that would be that rabbits are small, fluffy, and cute, making them appealing to many children. Rabbits are also one of the most common animals in the world and live on every continent except one, so they would be a common, easily recognizable animal regardless of where young readers are from.
In this feature from The University of Cambridge, Dr. Zoe Jaques notes that the reason animals are often used in moral tales (think of Br’er Rabbit and The Tortoise and the Hare) and children’s literature in general is because of “the sense that there is a special closeness between children and animals that is lost in adulthood.” There’s this idea that growing up and abandoning childhood things (such as stories of anthropomorphic animals dressed in their own little clothes), establishes a firmer boundary between the fantastical world of childhood and that of serious adulthood.
Though Jaques points out that there are far less young adult and adult fictions that focus on animals, even some of the stories that technically are classified as children’s literature are quite memorable indeed and can be enjoyed by an older audience, including adults. The stories of Redwall and Watership Down for example, may strike a first impression as children’s stories, but they are definitely intended for an older audience than that of Peter Rabbit and The Runaway Bunny and they tackle much more mature concepts.
Rabbits are said to symbolize a variety of things, from sensitivity, gentleness, new beginnings, birth, new life and good luck, just to name a few. Many of those traits or aspects would seem to align well with childhood and young children as well.
So, needless to say, I don’t have much beyond conjecture and opinion for why rabbits are so common in children’s literature, but I have to admit that I do have a fondness for them, which is why I just had to make an upcycled book sculpture rabbit (as evidenced in the photo above). I had also planned to get some Velveteen Rabbit and Peter Rabbit products done in time for Easter, but that just didn’t happen this year…maybe in 2023…
Which rabbit from fiction is your favorite?