Watership Down

“Watership Down is one of the most famous animal adventures ever written. It’s a fantastic book and it belongs next to Tolkien on the science fiction and fantasy shelves. It’s basically about this parallel civilization existing under our feet. It’s a really strange book, far stranger than people give it credit for” Read more...

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Young Adults

Philip Reeve, Children's Author

” This book scarred me as a child. The impact it had on me when I first read it was profound. I’m not sure I knew what I was getting into when I first picked it up. It’s brutal. Richard Adams writes about all of life: hope, freedom, sex, violence, death and evil. The rabbits in Watership Down are fleeing man-made destruction and persecution by human beings, but in the rabbit world there are parallels with the human world. The biggest impact this book had on me was that it changed the way I saw the countryside. Before reading Watership Down, my idea of the countryside was informed by Wind in the Willows and the Hundred Acre Wood in Winnie the Pooh — wonderful, benign creatures having tea. Then I was hit with Watership Down. I cared so much about those rabbits. It is one of the first books that made me think about the impact of humans. I later discovered that Richard Adams was a campaigner for animal rights.” Read more...

M G Leonard recommends the best Nature Books for Kids

M G Leonard, Children's Author