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Author | Margaret Wise Brown |
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Illustrator | Clement Hurd |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Children's literature |
Publisher | Harper |
Publication date | 1942 |
Media type | |
Pages | 48 |
ISBN | 978-0-06-077582-7 |
OCLC | 314185 |
The Runaway Bunny is a 1942 picture book written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd. The plot deals with a small rabbit, who wants to run away. His mother, however, tells him that "if you run away, I will run after you."
This book is the first in Brown and Hurd's "classic series," which also includes Goodnight Moon and My World . The picture of a cow jumping over the Moon, which features prominently in Goodnight Moon, first appeared in The Runaway Bunny. A copy of The Runaway Bunny appears in Goodnight Moon, as does the illustration of the mother fishing for the bunny child. The three books have been published together as a collection titled Over the Moon. [1]
An animated special based on the book was released on HBO Max on March 25, 2021. The special is narrated by Tracee Ellis Ross. [2]
A little bunny tells his mother that he is going to run away, becoming variously a fish, a rock on a mountain, a crocus in a hidden garden, a bird, a sailboat, a circus acrobat, and finally a little boy, until he resigns himself to stay where he is and remain her little bunny. Mother Bunny appears as a fisherman, a mountain climber, a gardener, a tree, a cloud, a trapeze walker, and finally the mother herself.
The illustrations alternate between 2-page black-and-white line images and accompanying text, and 2-page painted spreads. Similar alternation of black-and-white spreads and color spreads occur in all three books in the series.
The call and response structure of Brown's text provides an emotionally compelling depiction of a small child's first burst of independence and a mother's affirmation of unconditional love. [3]
The closing line of the book, "'Have a carrot,' said the mother bunny," was added after Ursula Nordstrom, the director of Harper's Department of Books for Boys and Girls, told Brown that the ending needed work. The line was cabled in to Harper's from Maine, where Brown was on vacation. [4] There have been two different final illustrations for this book.
The book has been in print continuously since 1942.[ citation needed ]
The Runaway Bunny has been adapted into a concerto for violin, reader and orchestra by the contemporary American composer Glen Roven, with text from the book.
The Runaway Bunny was referenced in season 11, episode 12 of the television show Cheers . Carla Tortelli states that she's read the book to her 8 kids over a thousand times and it 'made her bawl each time.' It is also referenced in the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays Wit [5] and Rabbit Hole as well as the film adaption of Wit.
The Runaway Bunny was also referenced in Korean drama, Mother. A musical adaptation of The Runaway Bunny, by Paul Lewis (book, music, lyrics) and Gabriel Carbajal (book) had its world premiere at Boston Children's Theatre in February 2019.
Goodnight Moon is an American children's book written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd. It was published on September 3, 1947, and is a highly acclaimed bedtime story.
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is an Anglo-American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. HarperCollins is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Corp.
Margaret Wise Brown was an American writer of children's books, including Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny, both illustrated by Clement Hurd. She has been called "the laureate of the nursery" for her achievements.
Leo Dillon and Diane Dillon were American illustrators of children's books and adult paperback book and magazine covers. One obituary of Leo called the work of the husband-and-wife team "a seamless amalgam of both their hands". In more than 50 years, they created more than 100 speculative fiction book and magazine covers together as well as much interior artwork. Essentially all of their work in that field was joint.
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Garth Montgomery Williams was an American artist who came to prominence in the American postwar era as an illustrator of children's books. Many of the books he illustrated have become classics of American children's literature.
In Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, and in the Little House series of books of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Williams['s] drawings have become inseparable from how we think of those stories. In that respect ... Williams['s] work belongs in the same class as Sir John Tenniel's drawings for Alice in Wonderland, or Ernest Shepard's illustrations for Winnie the Pooh.
Clement Gazzam Hurd was an American artist. He is known for illustrations of children's picture books, especially collaborations with writer Margaret Wise Brown including Goodnight Moon (1947) and The Runaway Bunny (1942).
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Charlotte Zolotow was an American writer, poet, editor, and publisher of many books for children. She wrote about 70 picture book texts.
Lillian Hoban was an American illustrator and children's writer best known for picture books created with her husband Russell Hoban. According to OCLC, she has published 326 works in 1,401 publications in 11 languages.
Ursula Nordstrom was publisher and editor-in-chief of juvenile books at Harper & Row from 1940 to 1973. She is credited with presiding over a transformation in children's literature in which morality tales written for adult approval gave way to works that instead appealed to children's imaginations and emotions.
John Steptoe was an author and illustrator for children’s books dealing with aspects of the African-American experience. He is best known for Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, which was acknowledged by literary critics as a breakthrough in African history and culture.
Little Fur Family is a 1946 picture book written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams. It tells the story of a little fur child's day in the woods. The day ends when his big fur parents tuck him in bed "all soft and warm," and sing him to sleep with a bedtime song.
Walt Disney's Story Land: 55 Favorite Stories is a series of books published over the years from 1962-1999 by Golden Press.
The Runaway Bunny is a concerto for violin, reader and orchestra by the contemporary American composer Glen Roven, with text from the classic children's bedtime story The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. The concerto premiered at Carnegie Hall on April 29, 2008 with Roven conducting the American Symphony Orchestra with Glenn Close narrating.
Edith Thacher Hurd was an American writer of children's books. She published 70 books in her lifetime, fifty of them illustrated by her husband, Clement Hurd.
Leonard S. Marcus is an American author and expert on English language children's literature. Marcus has been a critic for several publications including Horn Book and the New York Times Book review. Born and raised in Mount Vernon, New York, he attended Yale University and was editor of the Yale Literary Magazine.
My World: A Companion To Goodnight Moon is an American children's picture book written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd. The third book in Brown and Hurd's "classic series", it is the "companion" to Brown & Hurd's Goodnight Moon. My World was published in December 1949.
W. R. Scott was a children's literature publisher based in New York City that specialized in visually striking books with a contemporary educational philosophy. W. R. Scott's first editor was Margaret Wise Brown; the company also published a number of her books.
Gene (Eugene) Zion was an American author of picture books.