Watership Down

Locations
Call Number: Y Fiction / Adams, Richard, Kids Book / Fiction / Animals / General / Adams, Richard
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown Kids Books 4-week checkout	Y Fiction / Adams, Richard	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown Kids Books 4-week checkout	Y Fiction / Adams, Richard	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown Kids Books 4-week checkout	Y Fiction / Adams, Richard	4-week checkout	Due 05-19-2024
Pittsfield Kids Books 4-week checkout	Kids Book / Fiction / Animals / General / Adams, Richard	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Kids Books 4-week checkout	Kids Book / Fiction / Animals / General / Adams, Richard	4-week checkout	Due 05-18-2024
Malletts Kids Books 4-week checkout	Kids Book / Fiction / Animals / General / Adams, Richard	4-week checkout	Due 05-19-2024
Westgate Kids Books 4-week checkout	Kids Book / Fiction / Animals / General / Adams, Richard	4-week checkout	Due 05-04-2024

Some copies are illustrated by Aldo Galli.
Chronicles the adventures of a group of rabbits searching for a safe place to establish a new warren where they can live in peace.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Summary / Annotation
Fiction Profile
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Glad I gave it a second chance submitted by brady.emmett on July 31, 2011, 8:21am I originally read Watership Down when I was in middle school or high school, and I have remembered being a little put out by it. I had been resisting the idea of re-reading it, because of my previous experiment. I'm glad that I did decide to give it a second chance. I won't be putting it in my top lists of anything, but it was a good read. I enjoyed the world building and characterization of the rabbits. They weren't anthropomorphic rabbits, which is something you tend run into in the genre.

A True Classic submitted by KidBlue on May 3, 2012, 2:28pm This book is amazing in the way social and political themes are there if you want them, but if you don't (I don't), it's a terrific epic of a band of rabbits who journey forth to escape the destruction of their home. The author has brilliantly given each and every rabbit a complete and distinct personality. Rabbit, or Lapine, culture has a moving kind of folk-spirituality (with trickster rabbit hero El-ahrairah). They also have a language, a counting system (up to four, then a word for "a lot") and wisdom that, through Richard Adams artistry, becomes believable.
I couldn't put it down as I neared the thrilling and satisfying climax.
This is one of my very favorite books.

A Good Book submitted by kathscot on July 21, 2013, 8:51pm Really interesting Rabbit culture, stories, customs. The movie is pretty stupid, but the book is great.

A classic submitted by zoe.dvh on August 19, 2015, 12:56pm This book is a classic. good read

A classic, but... submitted by howarde on August 4, 2017, 6:23pm This is definitely a classic, well-told story. The way that Adams gets inside the rabbits' heads is masterful. However, it's worth pointing out that Adams' meticulous attention to realism and detail kind of collapses when it comes to gender. In the wild, it's actually female rabbits who leave to start new warrens, not males. Given that Adams was willing to overlook this "detail," which underpins the entire plot, it's not surprising that most of the female characters in the book are almost non-entities. I would definitely recommend giving this to young people who like thrilling fiction, but it would also be worth having a conversation with them afterwards about how gender roles play out in the story.

LOVE submitted by EJZ on July 21, 2018, 9:25am This is the book I recommend first to avid readers. It's a fantastic tale of adventure that can read like a pageturner, but still has undercurrents of religion and philosophy to engage the reader on a second or third read. As an aside, he really got rabbit behavior correct even though they're anthropomophised - I could totally see our house rabbit as Bigwig.

Didn’t want it to end! submitted by Team_ROX on July 22, 2018, 9:39pm This story grabbed me a lot more than I expected it to, and I fell in love with the characters. The world they create is deep and amazing, and I hated having to put the book down when I was finished. Few books were as enjoyable to read.

Repaya submitted by lstorc on August 31, 2018, 1:32am Watership Down is an emotional roller coaster ride with intermittent boring parts.

classic submitted by liron on July 6, 2019, 3:46pm this book is just great but what is sad is hazel dies at the end.

Classic submitted by vvergoth on July 20, 2022, 2:09pm I read this book so many times in my youth that I had to replace my copy--it was on my annual reread list.