Browns Super 6 - Eclectic Rabbits
5th April 2023
Our 'Browns Super 6' highlights six of our favourite books on a chosen theme or topic, chosen by an experienced member of the Browns Selection Team. We hope you enjoy our selection!
As we get ready for the Easter Weekend, we may be sick of seeing those cute little fluffy bunnies plastered all over social media or the adverts between your favourite shows. So, I apologise that this is now a blog featuring those little creatures, but do not fear these are not the rabbits that you will typically find hanging around your chocolate eggs… I am a fan of the quirky sides of stories, so I have put together a few favourites, and a few unusual recommendations, featuring a motley crew of rabbit characters.
I have grown up with classic films due to my parents and one of my all-time favourites from 1988 was ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’. With its interactive animations it was a laugh out loud favourite in our household and the VCR tape of it was worn out. It seems fitting that later in my life I have now gained a nickname of ‘Jessica Rabbit’ due to my red hair.
Another blast from the past that this topic has reminded me of is a children’s TV character called Horatio Knibbles, I was not a fan of his as a child, who would be of a fearsome giant rabbit! I reignited this fear when I discovered Donnie Darko, the monstrous rabbit costume was back in my head and scarier than ever.
My final recommendation based around rabbits is Beatrix Potter’s magical world featuring the cuddliest troublemaker, Peter Rabbit. When I was born my mother wanted to call me Jemima, after the well-known puddle duck in these tales, but thankfully I was saved by my grandma and given the name that I adore today, Jess (but not when I am in trouble because it turns to Jessica!).
I hope that you can find some more obscure rabbit characters in the books that you discover. When you do, please share these with me, I would love to read your suggestions.
Have a great Easter and happy egg hunting!
Jess – Content Selection Team
The Tale Of Peter Rabbit
Potter, Beatrix
Hardback
To celebrate the Peter Rabbit Centenary, each of the 23 original Peter Rabbit books have been relaunched. Each book features re-scanned illustrations which capture the quality and bright colours of Beatrix Potter's unique watercolours.
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Carroll, Lewis
Paperback / softback
With an Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at CanterburyThis selection of Carroll's works includes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, both containing the famous illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. No greater books for children have ever been written. The simple language, dreamlike atmosphere, and fantastical characters are as appealing to young readers today as ever they were. Meanwhile, however, these apparently simple stories have become recognised as adult masterpieces, and extraordinary experiments, years ahead of their time, in Modernism and Surrealism. Through wordplay, parody and logical and philosophical puzzles, Carroll engenders a variety of sub-texts, teasing, ominous or melancholy. For all the surface playfulness there is meaning everywhere. The author reveals himself in glimpses.
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Wed Wabbit
Evans, Lissa
Paperback / softback
You're called Fidge and you're nearly eleven. You've been hurled into a strange world. You have three companions: two are unbelievably weird and the third is your awful cousin Graham. You have to solve a series of nearly impossible clues. You need to deal with a cruel dictator and three thousand Wimbley Woos (yes, you read that sentence correctly). And the whole situation - the whole, entire thing - is your fault. Wed Wabbit is an adventure story about friendship, danger and the terror of never being able to get back home again. And it's funny. It's seriously funny.
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Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery and Howliday Inn
Howe, Deborah
Paperback / softback
"Bunnicula rules!" - Dav Pilkey, creator of Dog Man and Captain Underpants BEWARE THE HARE!When tomatoes suddenly go white, you have to wonder: is the cute wittle wabbit really a vampire? In this global bestselling classic, Harold the dog and Chester the cat must find out the truth about the newest pet in the Monroe household, a suspicious-looking bunny with unusual habits - and fangs! - before it's too late. In a second story, the Monroes have gone on vacation, leaving Harold and Chester at Chateau Bow-Wow. On the animals' first night there, the silence is pierced by mysterious cries in the dark, and Chester becomes convinced there are werewolves afoot. Soon animals start disappearing! Is it time for Harold and Chester to check out? A reader favourite for over 40 years! Perfect for fans of Roald Dahl, Goosebumps and My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish. This special bind-up volume contains the first two books of the original Bunnicula series, Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery and Howliday Inn.This unique edition features a striking red metallic cover, spine and back cover.
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Who Censored Roger Rabbit?
Wolf, Gary K
Paperback / softback
"Who'd want to kill a dumb cartoon bunny?"That's what Eddie Valiant wants to know. He's the toughest private eye in Los Angeles, and he'll handle anything - if you're human. If you're a Toon, that's another story.Eddie doesn't like Toons - those cartoon characters who live side-by-side with humans. Not the way they look, and especially not the way they talk: word-filled balloons come out of their mouths and then disintegrate, leaving dust all over his rug.Eddie will work for a Toon if his cash supply is low enough. So he reluctantly agrees when Roger Rabbit, a Toon who plays straight man (or should that be straight rabbit) in the Baby Herman cartoon series, asks him to find out who's been trying - unsuccessfully - to buy his contract from the DeGreasy Brothers syndicate.Then Rocco DeGreasy is murdered - and Roger is the prime suspect! The rabbit is also, as Eddie soon discovers, very, very dead.Who censored Roger Rabbit? And who shot Rocco DeGreasy? Was it Roger, or was it Rocco's hot-cha-cha girlfriend, Jessica Rabbit? Why had Jessica - a pretty steamy number for a Toon - ever married a dopey bunny in the first place? And why does everybody want Roger's battered old teakettle?As Eddie combs L.A. from the executive suites of the DeGreasy Brothers to Sid Sleaze's porno comic studio, he uncovers art thefts, blackmail plots....and the cagiest killer he's ever faced.In Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, author Gary K. Wolf has created a wonderfully skewed - and totally believable - world compounded of equal parts Raymond Chandler, Lewis Carroll, and Walt Disney. This riotously surreal spoof of the hard-boiled detective novel is packed with action and laughs. From first page to last, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? is shear delight.Celebrated author Gary K. Wolf's cult classic and highly praised novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? is the basis for the blockbuster Walt Disney/Steven Spielberg Academy Award winning film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.This version includes an author's sketch of Roger Rabbit PLUS autographs of Gary K. Wolf AND Roger Rabbit himself!The detective on the cover is portrayed by Mr. Wolf.
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Donnie Darko
King, Geoff
Paperback / softback
It's October 1988 and the end of the world is going to come in 28 days, six hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds; that's according to Frank, a giant, talking rabbit that only Donnie Darko, a brilliant but troubled teenager, can see. Frank has been urging Donnie to play dangerous pranks on his friends and dysfunctional family, but when he gets Donnie to leave his bedroom one night and tells him the world will end soon, strange things begin to happen - starting with the engine of an aeroplane plunging to the ground and hitting Donnie's, now empty, bedroom.
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