Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson

I found this book while doing some searching on Amazon.com for classic children's literature. The themes of this book revolve around showing kindness to animals and recognizing the importance of all creatures.

My daughter enjoyed this story. As with many books, the animals are talking and carrying on like people do. In this story, there are at least a dozen animals who live near the old house on "the hill." And new people are moving into the old deserted house. The animals are beside themselves with curiosity about the new folks. They turn out to be wonderful people, who share bountiful trash with the skunk and raccoon, leave plenty of veggies in the garden available to the little critters, have no issue with the mole tearing up their yard and will lend their aid to nurse an injured rabbit back to health. In the rather anti-climactic ending, St. Francis of Assisi is lifted up as the patron saint of animals and everyone lives happily ever after.

I found this book to be entertaining (and even suspenseful at times) but the ending to be a let down. And although I am all for treating animals fairly, I'm not all for thinking that animals have humanly thoughts about life or that we humans should treat animals necessarily as we treat humans. This book seemed to elevate the animals a bit higher than I do.

Another ok book - not great, but not terrible.

3 stars out of 5 from our family.