What do you think?
Rate this book
Brer Rabbit
Brer Rabbit's a Rascal
A collection of short stories featuring Brer Rabbi - Brer Rabbit's A Rascal, You Can't Trick Brer Rabbit!,A Happy New Year!, Brer Rabbit's New Year Gift, Brer Bear's Eggs, Bobs Meets Brer Rabbit, Pull His Ears, Brer Fox!, Brer Rabbit Gets Caught, Brer Wolf's Dinner-Party, Brer Rabbit and Brer Turkey Buzzard, Brer Rabbit's Fence, Brer Rabbit Joins The Party, Brer Rabbit and the Teapot, Bob Meets Brer Rabbit Again, Brer Rabbit's New Shoes, Brer Wolf and Brer Fox, Brer Rabbit and Mr. Man, How Brer Rabbit Got The Meat, Brer Rabbit Has A Suprise , Brer Rabbit And The Flower-Pot, Brer Fox Is Much Too Smart, Good For You Brer Rabbit, Mr Benjamin Ram and his Fiddle, Brer Rabbit's Astonishing Prank, Brer Fox Tricks Brer Terrapin, Brer Rabbit's Shilling, Brer Bear Goes To The Well, Brer Rabbit Goes To The Party, Brer Fox and Brer Terrapin, Brer Rabbit Trick Brer Fox, Brer Rabbit and the Moon, Brer Rabbit Scares His Friends, Brer Rabbit Is A Snowman, Mr Lion Hunts For Mr Man, Brer Rabbit's Red Carrots, Brer Turkey Buzzard Is In Trouble, Brer Rabbit's Apple Tree, Brer Fox Goes To Market, Brer Rabbit and the Guy and Brer Rabbit and the Little Girl.
186 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1965
10 people are currently reading
163 people want to read
About the author
Enid Blyton
5,097 books6,231 followersSee also:
Ένιντ Μπλάιτον (Greek)
Enida Blaitona (Latvian)
Энид Блайтон (Russian)
Inid Blajton (Serbian)
Інід Блайтон (Ukrainian)
Enid Mary Blyton (1897–1968) was an English author of children's books.
Born in South London, Blyton was the eldest of three children, and showed an early interest in music and reading. She was educated at St. Christopher's School, Beckenham, and - having decided not to pursue her music - at Ipswich High School, where she trained as a kindergarten teacher. She taught for five years before her 1924 marriage to editor Hugh Pollock, with whom she had two daughters. This marriage ended in divorce, and Blyton remarried in 1943, to surgeon Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters. She died in 1968, one year after her second husband.
Blyton was a prolific author of children's books, who penned an estimated 800 books over about 40 years. Her stories were often either children's adventure and mystery stories, or fantasies involving magic. Notable series include: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, Mallory Towers, and St. Clare's.
According to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare.
See also her pen name Mary Pollock
Ένιντ Μπλάιτον (Greek)
Enida Blaitona (Latvian)
Энид Блайтон (Russian)
Inid Blajton (Serbian)
Інід Блайтон (Ukrainian)
Enid Mary Blyton (1897–1968) was an English author of children's books.
Born in South London, Blyton was the eldest of three children, and showed an early interest in music and reading. She was educated at St. Christopher's School, Beckenham, and - having decided not to pursue her music - at Ipswich High School, where she trained as a kindergarten teacher. She taught for five years before her 1924 marriage to editor Hugh Pollock, with whom she had two daughters. This marriage ended in divorce, and Blyton remarried in 1943, to surgeon Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters. She died in 1968, one year after her second husband.
Blyton was a prolific author of children's books, who penned an estimated 800 books over about 40 years. Her stories were often either children's adventure and mystery stories, or fantasies involving magic. Notable series include: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, Mallory Towers, and St. Clare's.
According to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare.
See also her pen name Mary Pollock
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 31, 2019
Yup, Brer Rabbit was a rascal and a damn good one!
August 19, 2019
Brer Rabbit is a folk hero, and tales about him are perennially popular. I remember loving these stories when I was a child, and have fond memories of my father reading tales of Brer Rabbit, the trickster, to me at bedtime. Originally written by Joel Chandler Harris, there are many retellings available which attempt to make the Southern States vernacular more accessible to English children.
Joel Chandler Harris was born in Georgia U.S.A., in the middle of the 19th century. An illegitimate child with Irish ancestry, he excelled in reading and writing, but did not care for school. He had a habit of truancy, and was mostly known for his pranks, mischief, and sense of humour. Perhaps such practical jokes helped him to overcome his shyness, and the insecurity he felt about his red hair, and humble origins. During his teenage years, Joel Chandler Harris was an apprentice on a plantation. Then as an adult he worked as a journalist, and an associate editor for a newspaper.
We see his background and personality coming through clearly in his writings. What he is best remembered for now are his seven collections of “Uncle Remus” stories, and his many “Brer Rabbit” stories. Joel Chandler Harris collected many of these stories, which had originated in African folklore. When the stories were transmitted by African slaves to the New World, they there acquired additional attributes of similar native American tricksters, and a new character was born. Joel Chandler Harris fleshed him out into Brer, or Brother, Rabbit, representing a trickster figure, and in retelling many of his adventures, he gave them a potent and contemporary significant message. Brer Rabbit embodies the idea which is universal among oppressed peoples—that a small, weak, but intelligent and clever force can overcome a larger, stronger, but dull-witted one. Hence, Brer Rabbit always outsmarts his natural enemies, Brer Fox, Brer Wolf, and Brer Bear. They are stories of courage and survival, with Brer Rabbit as a true anti-hero.
As I think back, I can remember little blue cloth-bound books with silver lettering, from which my father read these stories to me, but I can’t quite grasp the publisher. There were also some retold by Enid Blyton. Enid Blyton is one of the most popular children’s authors of all time, with 762 books to her credit. She made 8 separate collections from Joel Chandler Harris’s tales in the 1940s, the first being in 1948, with more in 1958, and again through the early 1960s. They have been reissued many times, at first with around 40 stories in each collection, with a few line drawings, and latterly individually, with large colour illustrations.
It is perhaps surprising that Enid Blyton should have felt drawn to these tales, as her books for older children are largely adventure stories featuring middle-class white children, far away from the African-American oral tradition. However, her output was so colossal that at one time some people disbelieved that all this could come from one person, and suspected other “ghost writers” working under her name. Of course Enid Blyton vehemently denied this.
She wrote many books with a fantasy element, for younger children, which were not so harshly criticised for their simplistic language and stereotypical children. She wrote of other creatures: pixies, fairies, brownies and dwarfs. She also wrote quite a few factual books on Nature. In these “Brer Rabbit” stories, she tries to include some of the feeling of the Southern States, mostly by using expressions such as “mighty fine” or “mighty biggety” or the American verb “gotten”, which is a past tense of “get”, and archaic here in England.
We find many of the favourite tales, and meet all Brer Rabbit’s friends, Brer Terrapin, Brer Ram, Brer Turkey-buzzard and so on—and his enemies. Brer Rabbit is presented as a mischievous impish, lovable rogue, with many friends. His natural enemies: Brer Fox, Brer Wolf and Brer Bear, are always destined to come to a sticky end. In these stories, Brer Rabbit delights in pretending to be their friend, and then craftily manipulating circumstances. Brer Fox, Brer Wolf or Brer Bear would without fail be left in a humiliating situation, needing to be rescued, or going back to their home very much the worse for wear.
I am not a fan of much of Enid Blyton’s work, but these retellings are as good as any I have found, for English children. Brer Rabbit’s a Rascal! is one of three collections she made in the 1960s, with line illustrations by Grace Lodge. The other two are “Brer Rabbit Again” and “The Brer Rabbit Book”.
The stories in Brer Rabbit’s a Rascal! were originally published in the magazine “Teachers World” in the 1930s, or the 8 Brer Rabbit story books in the 1950s, or in the children’s magazine “Sunny Stories”.
Here are the titles:
Brer Rabbit’s a Rascal!
You Can’t Trick Brer Rabbit!
A Happy New Year!
Brer Rabbit’s New Year Gift
Brer Bear’s Eggs
Bobs Meets Brer Rabbit
Pull His Ears, Brer Fox!
Brer Rabbit Gets Caught
Brer Wolf’s Dinner-Party
Brer Rabbit and Brer Turkey-Buzzard
Brer Rabbit’s Fence
Brer Rabbit Joins the Party
Brer Rabbit and the Teapot
Bobs Meets Brer Rabbit Again
Brer Rabbit’s New Shoes
Brer Wolf and Brer Fox
Brer Rabbit and Mr. Man
How Brer Rabbit Got the Meat
Brer Fox Has a Surprise
Brer Rabbit and the Flower-Pot
Brer Fox is Much Too Smart
Good For You, Brer Rabbit
Mr. Benjamin Ram and His Fiddle
Brer Rabbit’s Astonishing Prank
Brer Fox Tricks Brer Terrapin
Brer Rabbit’s Shilling
Brer Bear Goes to the Well
Brer Rabbit Goes to the Party
Brer Fox and Brer Terrapin
Brer Rabbit Tricks Brer Fox
Brer Rabbit and the Moon
Brer Rabbit Scares His Friends
Brer Fox is a Snowman
Mr. Lion Hunts For Mr. Man
Brer Bear’s Red Carrots
Brer Turkey-Buzzard in Trouble
Brer Rabbit’s Apple Tree
Brer Fox Goes to Market
Brer Rabbit and the Guy
Brer Rabbit and the Little Girl
Joel Chandler Harris was born in Georgia U.S.A., in the middle of the 19th century. An illegitimate child with Irish ancestry, he excelled in reading and writing, but did not care for school. He had a habit of truancy, and was mostly known for his pranks, mischief, and sense of humour. Perhaps such practical jokes helped him to overcome his shyness, and the insecurity he felt about his red hair, and humble origins. During his teenage years, Joel Chandler Harris was an apprentice on a plantation. Then as an adult he worked as a journalist, and an associate editor for a newspaper.
We see his background and personality coming through clearly in his writings. What he is best remembered for now are his seven collections of “Uncle Remus” stories, and his many “Brer Rabbit” stories. Joel Chandler Harris collected many of these stories, which had originated in African folklore. When the stories were transmitted by African slaves to the New World, they there acquired additional attributes of similar native American tricksters, and a new character was born. Joel Chandler Harris fleshed him out into Brer, or Brother, Rabbit, representing a trickster figure, and in retelling many of his adventures, he gave them a potent and contemporary significant message. Brer Rabbit embodies the idea which is universal among oppressed peoples—that a small, weak, but intelligent and clever force can overcome a larger, stronger, but dull-witted one. Hence, Brer Rabbit always outsmarts his natural enemies, Brer Fox, Brer Wolf, and Brer Bear. They are stories of courage and survival, with Brer Rabbit as a true anti-hero.
As I think back, I can remember little blue cloth-bound books with silver lettering, from which my father read these stories to me, but I can’t quite grasp the publisher. There were also some retold by Enid Blyton. Enid Blyton is one of the most popular children’s authors of all time, with 762 books to her credit. She made 8 separate collections from Joel Chandler Harris’s tales in the 1940s, the first being in 1948, with more in 1958, and again through the early 1960s. They have been reissued many times, at first with around 40 stories in each collection, with a few line drawings, and latterly individually, with large colour illustrations.
It is perhaps surprising that Enid Blyton should have felt drawn to these tales, as her books for older children are largely adventure stories featuring middle-class white children, far away from the African-American oral tradition. However, her output was so colossal that at one time some people disbelieved that all this could come from one person, and suspected other “ghost writers” working under her name. Of course Enid Blyton vehemently denied this.
She wrote many books with a fantasy element, for younger children, which were not so harshly criticised for their simplistic language and stereotypical children. She wrote of other creatures: pixies, fairies, brownies and dwarfs. She also wrote quite a few factual books on Nature. In these “Brer Rabbit” stories, she tries to include some of the feeling of the Southern States, mostly by using expressions such as “mighty fine” or “mighty biggety” or the American verb “gotten”, which is a past tense of “get”, and archaic here in England.
We find many of the favourite tales, and meet all Brer Rabbit’s friends, Brer Terrapin, Brer Ram, Brer Turkey-buzzard and so on—and his enemies. Brer Rabbit is presented as a mischievous impish, lovable rogue, with many friends. His natural enemies: Brer Fox, Brer Wolf and Brer Bear, are always destined to come to a sticky end. In these stories, Brer Rabbit delights in pretending to be their friend, and then craftily manipulating circumstances. Brer Fox, Brer Wolf or Brer Bear would without fail be left in a humiliating situation, needing to be rescued, or going back to their home very much the worse for wear.
I am not a fan of much of Enid Blyton’s work, but these retellings are as good as any I have found, for English children. Brer Rabbit’s a Rascal! is one of three collections she made in the 1960s, with line illustrations by Grace Lodge. The other two are “Brer Rabbit Again” and “The Brer Rabbit Book”.
The stories in Brer Rabbit’s a Rascal! were originally published in the magazine “Teachers World” in the 1930s, or the 8 Brer Rabbit story books in the 1950s, or in the children’s magazine “Sunny Stories”.
Here are the titles:
Brer Rabbit’s a Rascal!
You Can’t Trick Brer Rabbit!
A Happy New Year!
Brer Rabbit’s New Year Gift
Brer Bear’s Eggs
Bobs Meets Brer Rabbit
Pull His Ears, Brer Fox!
Brer Rabbit Gets Caught
Brer Wolf’s Dinner-Party
Brer Rabbit and Brer Turkey-Buzzard
Brer Rabbit’s Fence
Brer Rabbit Joins the Party
Brer Rabbit and the Teapot
Bobs Meets Brer Rabbit Again
Brer Rabbit’s New Shoes
Brer Wolf and Brer Fox
Brer Rabbit and Mr. Man
How Brer Rabbit Got the Meat
Brer Fox Has a Surprise
Brer Rabbit and the Flower-Pot
Brer Fox is Much Too Smart
Good For You, Brer Rabbit
Mr. Benjamin Ram and His Fiddle
Brer Rabbit’s Astonishing Prank
Brer Fox Tricks Brer Terrapin
Brer Rabbit’s Shilling
Brer Bear Goes to the Well
Brer Rabbit Goes to the Party
Brer Fox and Brer Terrapin
Brer Rabbit Tricks Brer Fox
Brer Rabbit and the Moon
Brer Rabbit Scares His Friends
Brer Fox is a Snowman
Mr. Lion Hunts For Mr. Man
Brer Bear’s Red Carrots
Brer Turkey-Buzzard in Trouble
Brer Rabbit’s Apple Tree
Brer Fox Goes to Market
Brer Rabbit and the Guy
Brer Rabbit and the Little Girl
January 1, 2016
If you've already read 'The Brer Rabbit Book' then this is more of the same. Rather than repeat my comments from my first review, I'll offer up a list of questions your kids will probably ask you if you read this to them:
1. Why are all the animals called 'Brer' something apart from 'Cousin Wildcat'? What has he done to be demoted to cousin?
2. Why do only Benjamin Ram and Bobs the Dog have actual names? It's weird.
3. Why is Brer Rabbit sometimes a herbivore, like a real rabbit, but sometimes eats meat? Is he one of these 'I'm only a vegetarian when I feel like it' people?
4. How does Benjamin Ram play a violin when he only has hooves? Does everybody say he's really good at it to save his feelings?
5. Why doesn't Brer Fox feel it when Brer Rabbit nails his tail to the roof? Does he have some kind of strange nervous disorder?
Be prepared with answers for these. Good luck finding them.
1. Why are all the animals called 'Brer' something apart from 'Cousin Wildcat'? What has he done to be demoted to cousin?
2. Why do only Benjamin Ram and Bobs the Dog have actual names? It's weird.
3. Why is Brer Rabbit sometimes a herbivore, like a real rabbit, but sometimes eats meat? Is he one of these 'I'm only a vegetarian when I feel like it' people?
4. How does Benjamin Ram play a violin when he only has hooves? Does everybody say he's really good at it to save his feelings?
5. Why doesn't Brer Fox feel it when Brer Rabbit nails his tail to the roof? Does he have some kind of strange nervous disorder?
Be prepared with answers for these. Good luck finding them.
October 30, 2009
It always confused me a little when I was younger, that there were these books by Enid Blyton, and then the film The Song of the South, which also mentioned Brer Rabbit! Ah, the days of the internet and being able to google things at the drop of a hat. ;)
June 15, 2025
I dislike Brer Rabbit from an adult perspective
April 2, 2013
The book that got me into reading when I was a kid :)
December 16, 2015
Next book; Brer Rabbit Gets An ASBO?
July 23, 2022
There's nothing in this collection of stories that we haven't already seen in the previous Brer Rabbit books. It's the same sort of hijinks and "will-Brer-Rabbit-get-eaten-today" type of stories we've seen before. Fun, but repetitive.
September 24, 2019
First one was better
May 19, 2022
Great read and very humourous. Its like watching cartoons...only you create the whole scenes based on your reading
August 18, 2023
See my previous Brer Rabbit review as to why I’m reading these books, overall a sweet compilation but nothing too out of the ordinary, in fact most stories seemed exact replicas of each other
February 5, 2015
I think it was 1985 when I read this. Can't remember much about it now, other than Brer Rabbit's bout of double bluffing when he gets caught by (I think) a farmer, who keeps threatening to do dastardly things to him as punishment, only for BR to keep responding with something like:
"Yes, do anything, but please don't throw me into the thorn[?] bush!"
It was something thorny and bushy, which would help he clean of some sort of sticky substance and get away.
He was a lovable rascal. I know I thought this book was something special at the time, so think it's right that I rate it five stars.
I had not forgotten the cover, as I recognised the one above immediately.
It all gives one rosy feelings of a childhood long gone.
"Yes, do anything, but please don't throw me into the thorn[?] bush!"
It was something thorny and bushy, which would help he clean of some sort of sticky substance and get away.
He was a lovable rascal. I know I thought this book was something special at the time, so think it's right that I rate it five stars.
I had not forgotten the cover, as I recognised the one above immediately.
It all gives one rosy feelings of a childhood long gone.
October 16, 2014
Read this long back, when my sister was a child and someone had given it to her as a birthday gift. There's a ten year gap between me and my sister and I guess this book was not meant for a 14 year old, as I was at that point in time. However, believe me, Brer Rabbit and his adventures are for everyone, regardless of how old you are or how mature you think you are. Timeless fun is what he portrays in this latest adventure of his and I have had many a fun moment reading and reading again this small book.
October 20, 2017
Brer Rabbit is an absolute genius, of that there is no doubt. If Rabbits had an IQ I am sure his would be off the scale. He uses cunning, trickery and downright dishonesty to get his way, but that is what is so brilliant about him. An inspiration to me, as I am also small for my age, and I hate physical exercise, but I am also very cunning!
July 12, 2012
Another favorite of mine! This book is special to me because it got me started and interested in reading books. Absolutely funny and clever stories of Brer Rabbit and how he gets away from Brer Wolf and Brer Bear!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews