Rabbits and Reading

In my collection of illustrations and art featuring books and reading, there are a lot that involve animals. The overwhelming choice of animal is cats, followed closely by birds. I get why those two animals show up again and again. Birds for dreams and flights of fancy and cats for cozy—and both suggest interiority. 

But I’ve been surprised to find I have a handful of illustrations featuring rabbits, too. I can’t really think of why. Rabbits do have a bit of literary heritage. There’s Alice in Wonderland, of course, and Peter Rabbit. Maybe the fact that they live in burrows suggests the subconscious and interiority, (but I haven’t run across many illustrations of books, reading and snakes). What mostly seems to come across is a feeling of incongruity.

Like these two intellectuals. 

Illustration by Coco de Paris

Or this self-satisfied fellow.

Illustration by Mark Summers

This guy has burrowed in. The way I like to.

Illustration by Jimmy Moreli

These readers are just sweet.

Illustration by Christopher Denise

More cuteness:

Illustration by Sato Kanae

There’s a load of incongruities in this one:

Illustration by Tom Mead

In this one, I like how cleverly the artist has blended the two realities. Let’s not even get into how there’s actually no reality here at all.

Illustration by Leah Saulnier

Here a lot of animals get a chance at reading, but the rabbit definitely stands out. As with some of the other illustrations, the joke seems to be how intellectual the bunny is. So maybe rabbits reading is all about not being a dumb bunny.

Link Time

“Anna and Walter Schwarz on Will A. Lowman’s Jackass” (Eliza Schwarz) from the Anacortes Museum’s collection of 70,000 historic photographs.

I’ve decided to focus my contributions to Books Around the Table on links to sites that intrigue me. Some will have to do with kids books, others with writing, others with quirky sparks that might intrigue you as well. If you have links you want to share which do a similar job, I hope you’ll add them via the comments below.

My favorite this time around: The photo pictured above, of two kids on a jackass. It’s from small-town Anacortes Museum’s collection of 70,000 historic images (this in a town with a population of approximately 17,000 people!) newly digitized and put online as a searchable database. Here’s the link: https://anacortes.pastperfectonline.com/randomimages

Want a writing prompt? Find historic photos of a few unrelated people whose faces or circumstances interest you. Imagine a narrative that connects them.

Hope you enjoy these links!

Julie Larios

1. Goodnight Moon’s Margaret Wise Brown was an iconoclast. Who knew? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/07/the-radical-woman-behind-goodnight-moon
2. Sometimes, your comfort zone is all about the relative scale of things. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/when-a-cruise-ship-is-as-big-as-its-port
3. ALA Media Award winners 2022 – Newbery, Caldecott, etc.: https://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2022/01/donna-barba-higuera-jason-chin-win-newbery-caldecott-medals
4. On teaching your kids to be lazy: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/opinion/teach-children-to-be-lazy.html?referringSource=articleShare
5. Authors talk about their creative process: https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/01/20/authors-creative-process/

Mrs. Fry, who ran a bakery in Anacortes

The children of Seid Chee, who was the labor supervisor at the Anacortes salmon cannery.

“Simon’s Wrecking Jalopy in the Marineer’s Pageant Parade” (1935)

Luvera’s Fruit and Grocery, founded in 1918 by Nicholas Luvera of Calabria, Italy. [From the Anacortes newspaper: “Luvera’s supplies 93 per cent of the purse seine fleet with groceries, and enjoys a large part of the waterfront trade. Nothing but the best of everything is the rule at Luvera’s, the first store to install the new R C A Victor radio.”]