Bunny
Margaret Wise Brown's 1942 picture-book classic, illustrated by Clement Hurd, sets up one of the gentlest games in children's literature. A small bunny tells his mother he is going to run away. He will become a fish in a stream, a rock on a mountain, a crocus in a hidden garden, a bird flying away. With every escape his mother answers calmly that she will become a fisherman, a mountain climber, a gardener, the wind, and find him wherever he goes. Brown and Hurd, the same team behind Goodnight Moon, lay reassurance into every page in language so simple it sounds like a lullaby. The Runaway Bunny remains one of those books that survives whole childhoods on a parent's shelf, then returns when the next generation needs to hear that someone will always come find them.
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Loner Samantha Heather Mackey is the only student in her tiny New England MFA cohort who is not part of the gang of effusive women who call each other Bunny. Then they invite her to their secret weekend Smut Salon.
Bunny was written by Mona Awad and published in 2019. It is a dark academia satire about an MFA student drawn into a clique of unsettling classmates. Mona Awad also wrote All's Well and Rouge.
Bunny blends literary fiction, dark academia, body horror, and satire. The unsettling moments are gradual rather than gory. Many readers describe it as Heathers meets a creative writing program.
Bunny is 40 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Bunny takes most readers under an hour to finish.
Bunny is a standalone novel by Margaret Wise Brown, not part of a series.
Bunny is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.