Mark Bray
Mark Bray asked S.D. Smith:

How and why did you decide on rabbits for the characters?

S.D. Smith There were rabbits in the yard…

I was on the porch with my young daughter, and it was time for one of our stories. I often told her tales from out of my mind, improvised in the moment for her delight. Today felt different, and I scanned the natural beauty seen everywhere around us in West Virginia and found these furry, vulnerable creatures hopping around. So it began.

The stories we started that day were about a rabbit family caught up in a surprising, epic adventure. Joined by little brother, we shared this narrative at bedtimes, on walks, and at other stolen moments. These tales carried on for years and became our own private serial adventures. What my daughter and I didn’t know that first day, and would only learn years later, was that hundreds of thousands of children would one day share our little adventure—that it would outgrow the hills of West Virginia and make its way onto every continent on earth. We couldn’t have known then that a surprising adventure awaited us as well, an adventure in hospitality, sharing our stories with families around the world.

Like the seemingly harmless rabbits of our Appalachian landscape, we never expected to see our stories rise and fight. But hope is worth fighting for, and these are stories anchored in hope.

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