La piccola storia dei bambini lepre

by Sibylle von Olfers, Elena Spagnoli (Translator)

Dopo il successo della pubblicazione dei primi libri di questa straordinaria autrice e illustratrice tedesca, Pulce continua con un albo portatore di un messaggio molto forte e quanto mai attuale che, senza essere moraleggiante, è quanto mai efficace e chiaro. Due bimbi molto piccoli, figli di un cacciatore, si perdono nel bosco e sarà mamma lepre a trovarli e ad occuparsi di loro. Li vestirà da lepri per proteggersi dal freddo e li farà giocare con i suoi cuccioli. Nel frattempo il cacciatore cercherà disperatamente i suoi bambini e quando si imbatterà in un gruppo di lepri impaurite, sarà il suo cane ad accorgersi di qualcosa di strano. Più di cento anni fa la von Olfers sentì di dover scrivere di una natura che protegge e salva e del bisogno urgente che anche gli esseri umani comincino a comportarsi bene.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1906

About the author

Sibylle von Olfers (8 May 1881 – 29 January 1916) was a German art teacher and a nun who worked as an author and illustrator of children's books. In 1906 she published her best-known work, The Root Children (original title: Etwas von den Wurzelkindern, "Something about the children from the roots").

Reviews

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A reread today of a favourite bedtime story. First published in 1906, this story tells of a hunters wife taking her children to the woods. They are left to sleep in the shade whilst she goes off to pick mushrooms. When a mother rabbit finds them, she is shocked they are left alone so takes them home with her. Mother rabbit sews the children some nice rabbit suits and they continue as one family. Mother rabbit warns the children to watch out for the hunter. Well you might guess the mix up that nearly happens. Luckily the hunter's dog saves the day and the rabbit suited children are carried home to their mother.

We always wondered why mother left such tinies in the woods in the first place, and how after some time spent without her children she wasn't scouring the woods to find them (when they are returned to her she is knitting some socks) or why the hunter was shooting at rabbits whilst his children were missing, and would the rabbit family enjoy some sort of amnesty after this? But despite these problems, we always loved this story and as always the illustrations are exceptionally beautiful, I could look at silver birches against moss green forest floor with toddlers in rabbit suits all day, and I want the end papers as wallpaper, a repeat pattern of rabbits cleaning themselves, lovely!

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a hunter's wife goes to the woods to pick mushrooms one day, she brings her two infant children along, leaving them in their cradle as she wanders off. Mother Rabbit, happening to pass by, sees them and believes them to be abandoned. Taking them home with her, she fashions them rabbit suits, and encourages her own children to play with them. But when the Hunter and his dog happen upon the rabbits, will they destroy little Lucy and John, or will the quick-thinking Spot save the day...?

Originally published in 1906 as Mummelchen und Pummelchen: Eine Hasengeschichte, this story from German author/artist Sibylle von Olfers seems at first glance to feature the same kind of reassuring vision of the natural world to be found in so many of her other works. The Mother Rabbit, after all, looks after the lost Lucy and John, ensuring that no harm befalls them, and treating them as her own children. Similarly, Spot the dog recognizes the children for what they are, and acts quickly to prevent tragedy, and to restore them to their worried parents. In this sense, nature is as gentle and nurturing as ever, even if there are no cherub-like beings in the same style as von Olfers' Root Children, or Snow Children. That said, there is a disturbing undertone to this story, with its tale of parental/child separation, an undertone that evokes stories such as Hansel and Gretel, where another set of siblings is lost in the woods. It also raises interesting ethical questions, questions that remain unanswered. If nature is gentle and nurturing to people, what are people to nature? If human children and baby rabbits are interchangeable, what does it mean that the Hunter is a hunter, someone who kills rabbits? Is Mother Rabbit's kindness to be rewarded, or will she and her family continue to be hunted? One suspects the latter... I'm not sure that Von Olfers intentionally raises any of these questions - given her rather sweet depiction of nature elsewhere, I suspect not - but the fact that they are evoked by the text gives it added appeal, in my mind. Fairy-tales, after all, are made all the more powerful by including some disturbing subtext.

[Diane Chaniewski · Rating 2 out of 5]

The strangest of the von Olders' books I've read so far.