Rabbit Hill

Rabbit Hill is a children's novel by Robert Lawson that won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1945.

Plot introduction

The story takes place at a place and an area called Rabbit Hill in the country near a crossroads in Westport, Connecticut. The animal inhabitants are suffering as the house nearby has been abandoned for several years and the untended gardens, the animals' source of food, have withered to nothing. Then "New Folks" move in to the house. Are the New Folks hunters, or friendly gardeners who will share their crops with the animals?

Literary significance and criticism

The book was written at the end of WWII when racial integration and providing aid to the war torn countries of Europe were on everyone's minds. When reading the story with those in mind, the moral intent becomes clear. Printings of the book beginning in the 1970s and continuing today have edited the character Sulphronia, the new occupants' cook. This was done because she was originally depicted as an African American stereotype.^[1]

Film and television

"Little Georgie of Rabbit Hill" was a 1967 television adaptation for NBC Children's Theatre.^[2]

Footnotes