Watership Down by Richard Adams

This is the Dune of rabbit books. These are not the silly rabbits who try to steal cereal or play basketball with Nemwan from Seinfeld. These are deadly serious rabbits dealing with deadly serious situations. It’s a grand epic despite the whole thing taking place in your backyard. When one young rabbit has a dream of doom, he persuades the other rabbits that it’s time to move to a new area, and the quest for a new home spins off into a lot of adventure, danger and questions about the meaning of life. 

I mentioned Dune because like the deadly serious folks in that book, the rabbits have a deep religion and rich culture. These bunnies are thoughtful and spiritual, like a mall Easter Bunny taking philosophy courses at night who tells kids sitting on his lap, “You know what your problem is? Lack of utilitarian pragmatism. Hoppy Easter!” 

While this is a classic of middle school reading lists, I didn’t know about the book until I was out of college. I’m glad I read it as an adult, because you can probably guess that young Dan would have been bored and confused reading this in middle school. “Which one is Watership and why is he down?” 

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