Once, oh marvelous once, there was a rabbit who found his way home.
I’m a reader, and, I’d like to believe, a writer (I don’t think the desire to write makes me one, even though I get paid to do so). I’ve read countless books, most of them forgettable, but one stands out as the most important I’ve ever discovered. It’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo, and it’s about a bunny.
Yes, my favorite book is sold in the children’s section. It has illustrations. And my younger daughter gave it to me.
It changed my life when I first read it a year and a half ago and continues to do so every day. The book tells the story of Edward, a china rabbit that belongs to a little girl named Abilene. A gift from her grandmother, Abilene loves the little rabbit fiercely. Despite this, though, Edward is vain and closed-off to loving her or anyone else. It’s not until he falls overboard during a boat trip that he begins to open his heart and shift the way he sees the world.
Alone and helpless (because, you know, he’s just a china rabbit), Edward experiences life with other people and places, which changes everything within for him. He spends 297 days at the bottom of the ocean before he is rescued and begins his adventure of relating to others. He experiences fear, anger, sadness, joy, attachment and, ultimately, an epiphany. It’s through this miraculous journey that he ceases to be the selfish little rabbit he once was; it takes the experience of literally being broken (again, china rabbit) for him to truly understand the meaning of love and what it means to have a home.
God damn, I love this book.
“If you have no intention of loving or being loved, then the whole journey is pointless.”
tags: Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane