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Foxglove Hollow
"Spinoza!" was the first word Bartholomew ever uttered. And his parents knew he was destined to be ever so much greater than any ordinary hare. Smart enough and strong enough to become a prodigal like his famous grandfather, Proudfoot.
Sitting at the paws of his master, Bartholomew began his odyssey into adulthood. Mastering hare skills, discovering hare history, and preparing for the ultimate danger—the rabbit migration that could destroy hare civilization as they knew it.
Sitting at the paws of his master, Bartholomew began his odyssey into adulthood. Mastering hare skills, discovering hare history, and preparing for the ultimate danger—the rabbit migration that could destroy hare civilization as they knew it.
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 12, 1982
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June 16, 2025
I bought this book assuming it was going to be about realistic hares – there’s nothing in the synopsis or on the cover that suggests otherwise – but they’re actually anthropomorphic. They wear clothes, live in houses, get married, etc. They must also be much larger than real hares, since one picks up a bobcat, and at one point two hares and a stoat (itself described as being as big as a hare) fight off a cougar, an animal that could kill all three of them with one paw were they normally-sized.
The book reads more like an exercise in world-building than a story. There is very little plot – we follow young hare Bartholomew as he grows up and learns about hare society and history, mostly via the outlandish, Brer-Rabbit-like tales of his grandfather. Bartholomew’s destiny is apparently to stop a rabbit migration that threatens the hares, but this is swiftly dealt with in a single chapter at the very end of the book. Incidentally, I found the hatred towards rabbits rather off-putting – it made the hares seem arrogant and bigoted.
Whilst humans never appear, they must have existed at some point in this world as domestic animals like dogs and pigs are mentioned, and the hares often reference famous humans or human culture. For example, they talk about Napoleon, Romeo, and the Greeks without ever saying how they know about these things. Is the story set after humans have died out and animals become civilised enough to learn about them? It’s never explained.
Whilst the idea of trying to imagine what sort of civilisation hares might create is interesting, the execution is dull and didactic. The author also doesn’t seem to have done much research into the animals he’s writing about. There are frequent comments regarding the hares’ paw-pads (hare paws do not have pads), civets are referred to as part of the cat family, and it’s stated that wolves “have a poor sense of smell”!
The book reads more like an exercise in world-building than a story. There is very little plot – we follow young hare Bartholomew as he grows up and learns about hare society and history, mostly via the outlandish, Brer-Rabbit-like tales of his grandfather. Bartholomew’s destiny is apparently to stop a rabbit migration that threatens the hares, but this is swiftly dealt with in a single chapter at the very end of the book. Incidentally, I found the hatred towards rabbits rather off-putting – it made the hares seem arrogant and bigoted.
Whilst humans never appear, they must have existed at some point in this world as domestic animals like dogs and pigs are mentioned, and the hares often reference famous humans or human culture. For example, they talk about Napoleon, Romeo, and the Greeks without ever saying how they know about these things. Is the story set after humans have died out and animals become civilised enough to learn about them? It’s never explained.
Whilst the idea of trying to imagine what sort of civilisation hares might create is interesting, the execution is dull and didactic. The author also doesn’t seem to have done much research into the animals he’s writing about. There are frequent comments regarding the hares’ paw-pads (hare paws do not have pads), civets are referred to as part of the cat family, and it’s stated that wolves “have a poor sense of smell”!
Displaying 1 of 1 review