Winner of the 1945 Newbery Medal
It has been a while since Folks lived in the Big House, and an even longer time has passed since there has been a garden at the House. All the animals of the Hill are very excited about the new Folks moving in, and they wonder how things are going to change. It’s only a matter of time before the animals of the Hill find out just who is moving in, and they may be a little bit surprised when they do.---from the publisher
126 pages 9780142407967 Ages 8-11
Keywords: animals, rabbits, Newbery Medal, family, nature, environment, classic, 8 year old, 9 year old, 10 year old, 11 year old
Excerpt:
“‘Seems there's new Folks coming.’ ‘Yes, I know,’ cried Little Georgie eagerly. ‘I've just made a song about it. Wouldn't you like to hear it? It goes like—’ ‘No, thanks,’ called Robin.” – Rabbit Hill
“‘I've made up a song about the new Folks,’ [Little Georgie] added eagerly. ‘Would you like to hear it?’ ‘Don't think I would,’ answered Uncle Analdas.” – Rabbit Hill
************** Other reviews:
This book did not win literary acclaim in its own time because it is a gentle-spirited, lovely, book about animals and their families. It won because it hints at the deeper perspective of the landscape in which these animals live.
The human presence on the landscape--fore-fronted in the story by a home sale, and a new human family renovating and moving into a home that has long been left empty in the center of a community of small, wild animals--is considered through the deeper span of history, as the animals retain dim memories of a landscape unpopulated by Europeans (the story is set in ~1944 "current day" Connecticut, USA), and then traversed by troops marching off to the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and leaving farmsteads abandoned.
That is not the major theme of the book, but it's in there, and, ultimately, it makes the book a lot more of a read than simply the tale of brave-hearted Little Georgie and his cranky, yet noble, old Uncle Analdas.
Some readers will find the depiction of 1944 human society oppressive or "dated." While recognizing that era's flaws, all I can say is... too bad for them. ---Katya Reimann on Goodreads 2012
