Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

It is heartwarming (in the extreme for me) to see so many glowing and informative reviews about this incredible book. I read Watership Down when I was in junior high and remembered liking it very much. Then life got busy and I pretty much forgot about it. But occasionally I'd see it on the bookshelves at my local library or bookstore and an itch would start in the back of my mind, telling me that I should revisit its magical pages. So this Winter, I did . . . How wonderful it is to visit such a fully realized world created by the human mind, but set in an anthropomorphic background (and foreground, too!). The story is about a band of rabbits---Hazel, Bigwig, Fiver, Dandelion, and Bluebell---who set off from their comfy holes to find a new rabbit warren on the plains of Watership Down. They leave their original warren because Fiver (a small, brooding rabbit with 'The Sight') has a vision of it being destroyed. Not surprisingly, soon after they leave, they find out that the warren HAD been destroyed by big hrududil (tractors) that dug up the ground and killed all those who remained behind. The trials and tribulations of Hazel and his band of rogue rabbits carries the story along at a leisurely pace, not rushing to get the story out, giving rabbit history and mythology a few well-deserved pages, too. After Hazel and his fellow bunnies set up their new warren on Watership Down, though, they find that they have a serious problem: no does (females)! Without does, their new warren is doomed to failure, so they set about trying to locate some breeding stock. But what they encounter is a terrible warren known as Efrafa run by the overbearing and callous General Woundwort. The battle between Watership Down and Efrafa is terrible and exciting reading, even for adults. One other thing that struck me about reading this book (even years later) is that there are so many things discussed in it of an adult nature; rabbit miscarriages, battles, sexual connotations, death and dying, all are covered within these simple pages. And it's done so effortlessly (thank you Mr. Adams), the story's flow is NEVER interrupted. This book was first published in 1972 (a limited release no less) in England; the publisher wasn't sure if it would be well received since it really wasn't a children's tale, nor adult literature. Thank GOD they took a chance on it. If they hadn't, we would surely have been denied a true literary classic. A+ rating.