WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Book Club: Bunnies Are Like Children

Episode Date: February 7, 2026

Join me, Nicole Sighiartau, on Book Club! Every week I will chat about a section of chapters from the monthly book. This month's book is Watership Down, and today covers Part II: On Watership Down, chapters 18-29. Next week we will be discussing Part III: Efrafa, chapters 30-38. Please read along and enjoy casual conversation and bookish tidbits! 

Hello and welcome to Book Club on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Nicole Sagiratau, and this week we'll be discussing chapters 18 through 29 of Watership Down. Welcome to Book Club. Now that we're in the heart of Watership Down, I will say I have become rather attached to these little rabbits. Sometimes I still find myself getting a little bored, but also it is really nice to dive into this book at random points throughout. the day and experience the struggles of these little bunnies. In a way, it is kind of a nice reminder that my problems are rather insignificant to a point. I mean, these rabbits are scared of serious problems such as finding shelter and not getting eaten by owls. It's really life or death

problems that they're facing. And those are serious concerns in comparison to my issues of studying for my next calc quiz. I think at the start of the book, it was really easy to shrug off the worries of the rabbits because we didn't quite know the characters super well yet, so it wasn't easy to relate to their problems or have genuine concern for them. But I think Richard Adams does a great job of really developing each of the rabbits into distinct characters, and you understand their unique strengths and struggles and why they're so important to this journey that the rabbits are making away from their home Warren. And something that has really

stuck out to me now that I'm further into the book is that Adams will often compare the behavior of rabbits to the actions of humans. And I think this is really helpful because truly we can't understand a rabbit and how they think, but Adams makes it easier to understand the rabbits by comparing them to humans. He does this really frequently, especially with just kind of describing the way that they move, the way that they conceptualize fear and how rabbits are very skittish. Obviously, we know this about rabbits, but it's very easy to forget how they move and how they look around and act. But when compared to people, it's really easy for us to visualize them. Ultimately, I feel like Adams has accomplished what the movie Ratatoui does. We can't really see the perspective.

of little rodents like rats and rabbits because more often than not, they're annoying to us. And we view them as such. However, when we see them from their level and we almost dive down into the body of a rabbit, their problems are really frightening. I mean, an owl is very scary to a small rabbit, whereas to us, an owl is no big deal because obviously an owl is not going to come down and pick me up and fly me away to its nest. But I will say I have got to. and so attached to these little rabbits that I audibly gasped when I read what happened to their home Warren. And I never knew I could feel so bad for rabbits because my grandma has a garden. And thankfully, we don't have rabbit problems specifically, but we do have issues with gophers.

And so in my mind, I've kind of lumped rabbits and gophers and little rodents like that together and have just viewed them as annoying. But I think it's also easy to feel bad for them because has written these rabbits in a way that they seem like children. If they're children, it's very easy for us to feel protective over them and to have concern for them. I feel like Adams accomplishes this in several ways, such as the rabbits having their own unique language with made up words for certain objects. So, for example, uh, Hruidu is a motorized vehicle to a rabbit. So this can mean a car, a tractor, lawnmower, so on and so forth. And I feel like this is very similar to what kids do. I mean, little kids don't have a full understanding of the world, so when

they grow up, they create words or concepts to help them understand things that are not yet explained to them. This is what the rabbits have done. They don't know what these vehicles are, so they've just made up a word. Another thing is that the rabbits are like children because they are so matter-of-fact about certain things. Kids are very honest, and so are the rabbits. Finally, the rabbits are kind of childish because they didn't plan ahead when they left their home warren. All the rabbits that left were mailbox, and they didn't bring any doze along with them. So now they find themselves in a situation where they realize the new war in they've established will die out if they don't find any females to help replace the population. Thank you for joining me this week on Book Club.

Next week we'll be discussing Part 3, F. Raffa, chapters 30 through 38. Happy reading, and I'll talk with you soon on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Thank you.