The Runaway Bunny
 | |
| Author | Margaret Wise Brown |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Clement Hurd |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's literature |
| Publisher | Harper |
Publication date | 1942 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 48 |
| ISBN | 978-0-06-077582-7 |
| OCLC | 314185 |
The Runaway Bunny is a 1942 picture book written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd. The plot deals with a small rabbit, who wants to run away. His mother, however, tells him that "if you run away, I will run after you".
The book has been in print continuously since 1942.
This book is the first in Brown and Hurd's "classic series," which also includes Goodnight Moon and My World. The picture of a cow jumping over the moon, which features prominently in Goodnight Moon, first appeared in The Runaway Bunny. A copy of The Runaway Bunny appears in Goodnight Moon, as does the illustration of the mother fishing for the bunny child. The three books have been published together as a collection titled Over the Moon.
The closing line of the book, "'Have a carrot,' said the mother bunny," was added after Ursula Nordstrom, the director of Harper's Department of Books for Boys and Girls, told Brown that the ending needed work. The line was cabled in to Harper's from Maine, where Brown was on vacation.[1] There have been two different final illustrations for this book.
Notes
- ↑ Nordstrom, Ursula. Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom ed. Leonard S. Marcus. New York: HarperCollins, 1998., p. 5, footnote.
References
- Pearson, Claudia. Have a Carrot: Oedipal Theory and Symbolism in Margaret Wise Brown's Runaway Bunny Trilogy Birmingham, AL: Look Again Press 2010. ISBN 978-1-4524-5500-6 https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/21324
- Marcus, Leonard. Margaret Wise Brown, Awakened by the Moon Boston: Beacon Press. 1992.
- Nordstrom, Ursula. Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom ed. Leonard S. Marcus. New York: HarperCollins, 1998.