It’s Easter weekend (if you celebrate), and although the snow just melted here the promise of spring is in the ground and in the air. This means I’m taking a brief pause from my Barbara Cooney series, because it’s time for my annual re-read of The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes. You’re probably familiar with this book, but if you aren’t? Let me introduce you to a picture book that not only has an amazing color palette, but was surprisingly progressive for 1939, especially when you consider it was written by a white man from the Jim Crow-era South (side note: author Du Bose Heyward also wrote Porgy, the novel that Porgy and Bess was based on).
The book introduces us to “a little country girl bunny with brown skin and a little cotton-ball of a tail” who longs to be one of the five Easter Bunnies that deliver eggs to children all over the world. “‘Some day I shall grow up to be an Easter Bunny:— you wait and see!’” she exclaims.
However, the “big white bunnies who lived in fine houses” doubt Cottontail, as do the Jack Rabbits:
(Don’t Marjorie Flack’s illustrations perfectly capture what it feels like to be small, and what it feels like to assert yourself, even though you’re small? )
When Cottontail grows up and has twenty-one (!!!) babies, those same white rabbits laugh, and Jack Rabbits are full of judgement: “‘What did we tell you! Only a country rabbit would go and have all those babies. Now take care of them and leave Easter eggs to great big men bunnies like us.’ And then they went away liking themselves very much.” I mean, I’m not going to speak for every woman who might be reading this, but the amount of times I have felt the absolute accuracy of that exchange . . .
Cottontail “stopped thinking about hopping over the world with lovely eggs for little boys and girls, and she took care of her babies.” What she does, though, is raise her children so that they’re self-sufficient. They all share the housework, boys and girls, and so when it’s time to chose a new Easter Bunny, Cottontail’s capable parenting is one of the very things that makes her perfect for the job.
It’s still not easy, though. When Cottontail is selected for a special Easter delivery, she fails. She falls down a literal mountain. She’s uttterly defeated.
Until, that is, she’s gifted a magical pair of little gold shoes:
After Cottontail completes her mission and returns home with an Easter basket for her own children, she finds that they’ve managed the household exactly as she taught them. Not only is Cottontail an excellent mother, but she perseveres in the face of doubt, realizing her own goals and dreams apart from being a mother. It’s a sweet seasonal tale, but it’s also subversive and feminist, and that’s why I find myself returning to it year after year, wondering what my grandmothers (who had 14 and 11 children, respectively) might have thought while reading it to their large families.
Random Good Things
“On Cross-Pollination” by
spoke to me so much, and reminded me of how art inspires art inspires art, whether or not we know it at the time.I let my sourdough starter die awhile back, but I wanted to get back to baking and, well, slow things that take time. This starter recipe from King Arthur flour is helpful if you want to make your own.
While upgrading my sourdough game I ordered these dough cloth scrubbing-thingies recommended by
. They’re hugely helpful for removing cement-like dough from bowls and pans.I also bought this whisk, which is super sturdy and holds up to heavy bread doughs.
This spring minestrone recipe. Soup season’s not quite over yet!
Books I’ve Read and Loved Recently (for Adults)
Syllabus by Lynda Barry absolutely blew my mind. I want to say more about it in a future post, but for now, I’ll just say it’s a wonderful read about creativity and play.
Books I’ve Read and Loved (One More Bunny Classic)
I Am a Bunny by Richard Scarry is another book we still remember fondly and re-read from time to time.
Happy spring! If you enjoy this newsletter, perhaps you’ll consider pre-ordering my next book, World More Beautiful: The Life and Art of Barbara Cooney, which is out on August 6th— Cooney’s 107th birthday.
*Please note that all books mentioned above contain affiliate links to Bookshop.org, a site that helps support local independent bookstores.