Hare's Choice

First published in 1988, and written by a former teacher and County English Adviser, this is an unusual blend of reality, fable and ‘creative writing’.

Two young children, finding a dead hare on their way to their small village school, decide to take it with them. Their wish to give the hare a fitting goodbye leads their teacher to turn their speculation about the circumstance of her death into a class storytelling project for the day. Framing this is the hare’s own story to which the reader is privy: her last moments, the voice given to her in the children’s version, and the choice she has to make between a ‘fictional’ afterlife remembered forever through the publication of the children’s story, and the afterlife of non-speaking creatures.

I find it hard to give a sensible recommendation for this book. Undoubtedly sensitively written, it seems to be a model for the kind of writing conference and collaborative writing much practised before the advent of the Literacy Hour (see recent BfKs for discussion of that!). So, to inspire teachers, it might have a place. As a story for children, I’m not sure that it works – the lyricism of the narrative is seductive, but the supposed ‘children’s own work’ has too adult, and too uniform, a voice. There’s a didacticism, at times informative and interesting, which is a little heavy for the whole.

I suppose what I’m saying is that the central narrative – and the beautiful wet-on-wet illustrations – would be enough; the marriage of that with the creative writing agenda didn’t quite work for me.