Book: Raising Hare

 Book: Raising Hare

Author: Chloe Dalton

Pages: 304

This is my 166th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it.  Imagine that it lived under your roof and bounded around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention.  Imagine that, more thatn 2 yeras later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end.  For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.  In FEbruary 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare - a leveret - that had been chased by a dog.  Freating for its life, she brings it home, only to discover how difficult it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation.  Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness.  Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton's house by day.  Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, weasels, feral cats, raptors, or even people, she never treid to restrict it to the house.  Each time the hare leaves, Chloe knows she may never see it again.  Yet she also understands that to confine it would be its own kind of death. 

This was a really great book.  I found it on the shelf at the library in our booksale room and a friend said I needed to reat it.  She was right!  It was such an interesting story about how the author let this hare - and several others - completely consume her home and life.  I kept picturing what it might look like with wild rabbits running in and out all the time, but maybe it was truly more magical than messy?  I learned a lot about hares in general among the sweet story, and I am so glad I read it.

Stars: 5