The things you can learn from Anita Silvey! If you are a children’s book lover and have not found her website at www.childrensbookalmanac.com, I recommend that you check it out right away. She does a book-a-day entry, highlighting wonderful old and new children’s books. In honor of National Rabbit Week, her entry yesterday was about Rabbit Hill, Newbery Award winner for Robert Lawson. He was fond of his resident rabbits who seemed to know when an acceptance for a book was coming and accompanied him to the mailbox on those days. One stared him down through the window on the day he won the Newbery.
I didn't even know it was Rabbit Week, but I began to think about the ones who live in my yard. My rabbits are challenged. They won’t even stand still enough for pictures. But if I hang behind the window and look out, I can watch them stretch up on their hind legs to nibble the leaves off my Black-eyed Susans. I’m pretty sure they are the culprits for missing strawberries and the few other garden treats I’ve coaxed into growing, only to have them disappear just as they got ripe enough to
eat. I usually forgive them since I still love the Beatrix Potter books and tend to characterize the little scamps as Peter or his cousin Benjamin. I rest assured that Old Mr. Benjamin Bunny, Sr. will come, give them their needed punishment, and march them home just as he did from Mr. McGregor’s garden.
While I share Robert Lawson’s fascination with the critters and allow them the run of my garden, my rabbits have not become sufficiently 
friendly nor perceptive enough to give me notice of acceptance letters. I’ve tried to figure this out. Maybe if I plant some lettuce . . .