Previously in this series: If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.
Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away.
So he said to his mother, “I am running away.”
This was his first mistake.
“If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you.
I would swallow my own heart before I let you escape.”
“If you run after me,” said the little bunny,
“I will become a fish in a trout stream
and I will swim away from you.”
The little bunny had a small and a desperate magic.
“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother,
“I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.
I will always be bigger than you.
I will always be stronger than you.
Your magic is no match for my magic.”
“If you become a fisherman,” said the little bunny,
“I will become a rock on the mountain, high above you.
Better to be a stone and insensible to all things
than to stay here with you. Better to be a stone.”
“If you become a rock on the mountain high above me,”
said his mother, “I will become a mountain climber,
and I will climb to where you are.
I will wake you from your stone-sleep
and I will make you open your eyes to me.”
“If you become a mountain climber,”
said the little bunny,
“I will be a crocus in a hidden garden.
I will grow, I will grow, I will grow.
I will grow without you. I will feel
the sun on my face and I will thrive.”
“If you become a crocus in a hidden garden,”
said his mother, “I will be a gardener.
And I will find you. And I will tear you up
by the roots. The soil is not a mother to you
like I am a mother to you. You will find no
purchase there. I will not let you grow
without me. I will see you rootless first.”
“If you are a gardener and find me,”
said the little bunny, “I will be a bird
and fly away from you.” It was a lie
and they both knew it. He had no such power.
“If you become a bird and fly away from me,”
said his mother, who had already won and who was
never kind in victory, never soft to the defeated.
“I will be a tree that you come home to.
I will become every tree in the forest.
I will be everything that looks like escape,
every branch that carries with it the hope of rest.
You will look for freedom and find only me.
I will always be bigger than you.
I will always be stronger than you.
Your magic is no match for my magic.”
“If you become a tree,” said the little bunny,
“I will become a little sailboat,
and I will sail away from you.
And if I founder, or am marooned,
if I am swallowed by a wave and become
bride to the sea, it will be better for me.
I will find rest on the cool floors of the ocean.”
“If you become a sailboat and sail away from me,”
said his mother, “I will become the wind
and blow you where I want you to go.
I will give you no rest. I will never relent.
I will be trade winds and doldrums alike,
and I will pursue you with torments and storms
From the top of the world to the bottom,
and you will never know a moment’s peace.
I would swallow my own heart before I let you escape.”
“If you become the wind and blow me,” said the little bunny,
“I will join a circus and fly away on a flying trapeze.”
“If you go flying on a flying trapeze,” said his mother,
“I will be a tightrope walker,
and I will walk across the air to you.
I will hunt you wherever you go, and I will
tear you down from the sky and bring you here.”
“If you become a tightrope walker and walk across the air,”
said the bunny, “I will become a little boy
and run into a house. I will give up all my magic,
and become human, and grow old, and die, to be gone from you.”
“If you become a little boy and run into a house,”
said the mother bunny, “I will become your mother
and catch you in my arms.”
“You are not a true mother to me,” said the bunny.
“I am your only mother,” said his mother.
“Ahhh,” said the bunny, “I might just as well
stay where I am.”
And so he did.
“Have a carrot,” said the mother bunny.
He did not want it, but there was no one else who would feed him, so he took what she had to offer and he ate it.
Tags: children’s stories made horrific, despair, the runaway bunny, traps
Filing this under “God damn it, Mallory.”
I read this book to my kid sometimes just for a change of pace and I choke up each and every time because that is the ONLY REASON THAT BOOK WAS WRITTEN. I don’t need that shit.
Why are there so many children’s books written with the sole purpose to choke up parents? Kids don’t actually enjoy these books, right??
The next day, the little bunny had an idea. He went around to all the other animals he could find and asked them, “Are you my mother?” Eventually he got a “yes” from an old dog, and he and his new mother and bird brother lived happily ever after. THE END
#crossoverfixitfic
Thank you.
hee hee!
You are the worst. But also the best (at rendering abusive, manipulative relationships via children’s books).
Indeed… Do The Giving Tree next!
She did! Click the previous installments link!
AUUUUUUUUGH I may never recover from this one.
I just came down here basically to say AUUUUUUUUUGH, so we can AUUUUUUUUGH together. I will also be in a fetal position in the corner if you would like to join me.
*joins you in corner* *brings blankets*
That gif will never stop making me laugh.
Yessss the puppy can come too.
Seriously. EVERY TIME I click, and EVERY TIME I tell myself I will never click again. But I dooooo.
I was coming down to also say AAUGH, but the puppy changed it to AWWWWW.
My face is all D,,,,,,,: that’s right I’ve cried my nose and the dent beneath it but above the top lip right off.
And then, after you read/see Margaret Edison’s “Wit,” and the English professor is all “you are dying of cancer, let me read you The Runaway Bunny, oh BTW the mom bunny is God and the baby bunny is a doubtful Christian” you get even more frustrated with the story.
(Also: that scene in Wit makes me cry every time.)
I read “Wit” several years ago in a class and I don’t know how I would read it now, but I do remember going for BLOOD when this Southern Californian, self-styled devil’s advocate “genius” – pissant tried to whine about it being sentimental trash.
Well, it has great roles for older actresses, and it gives small-town newspapers an excuse to write 1,000-word features on “guess which local woman you know is shaving her head to play Vivian Bearing?”
It’s certainly not trash. Overly sentimental? Too reliant on the “Type A has to learn how to FEEL” trope? Maybe… but it also won the Pulitzer, so whatevs.
And also when I saw Emma Thompson play her in the film version my heart almost literally exploded.
THIS IS THE END OF OUR BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP, MALLORY.
It’s a creepy kind of day today, guys!
I hadn’t noticed.
NO KIDDING
You’re doing this because I couldn’t go see LOTR with you, aren’t you?
when love is gone, there’s always justice
when justice is gone, there’s always force
when force is gone…. there’s always Mom… (hi Mom!)
— Laurie Anderson
It’s not working this still made me cry a bunch. MOMS.
Well this afternoon has decidedly taken a turn.
yeah no i dont think so Mallory. Not this time. I get what you’re saying, and it has merit, and it has occurred to me that the mom is shutting her kid down at every turn but no. The premise of The Runaway Bunny, which is also a true fact, is that kids are so dumb. Oh don’t give me that Blakean nonsense about them being closer to the Overmind or what not. Soon as my baby learned to crawl she tried to crawl right off the edge of the couch. Or down the stairs. Or off the bed. She has no concept of danger, which I can say because I’ve run this experiment a bunch of times and every time she crawls straight to her doom. She unplugged the carbon monoxide detector and put the electrical prongs in her mouth. That’s two strikes. Human young are the dumbest animal that ever exists on this good green earth.
You think the mom bunny wants to turn into a rock? Yeah everyone loves having super dry skin. Being the wind would be cool but blowing a boat across the ocean? Probably hard. Like when you have to inflate your kid’s inner tube or something so they don’t drown from not knowing that water isn’t air.
When I was a kid–let’s see, I was younger than 7 so this was late 80s/early 90s–I wanted to run away. My mom told me I could run away to our friends’ house down the street. My sister came with me and we camped out in their yard for a few hours. Eventually we realized we had none of the resources needed to survive. They let us call our mom, who came and picked us up. So that worked out well, but only because it was a controlled environment. Even so it felt like I was right on the edge of more than a kid could handle.
Anyway, I read this book to my daughter sometimes. Not too much, because I have the same physical copy that my mom read me and it is a little worse for wear. I like the artwork and how it’s kind of a game to find the two bunnies. I liked it when I was a kid, especially when the bunny is a crocus because that was the hardest one for me to find.
I…think you have mistaken a piece of creepy fiction for an argumentative essay that lays claim to what the Runaway Bunny is “really” about, Greg.
It’s about abortion.
It’s about this time Phil Collins saw a dude drowning.
Wait, I’m not engaging with you, we’re fighting right now.
It’s about Tom Petty’s old apartment-building balcony.
It’s about a bad breakup with Dave Coulier.
It’s about global warming.
[Damnit I was hoping this would turn into the Foxy Brown comment thread.]
In my experience, men don’t like the Runaway Bunny at all. They see the mother bunny as ubiquitous and smothering, rather than kind and watchful.
The mother rabbit always made me feel smothered and uncomfortable when I was a small child. I was extremely close to my own mother, but that book just bothered me. (I’m female.)
It’s about a little bunny running away from a big bunny.
I will always be bigger than you.
I will always be stronger than you.
OH GOD
I didn’t understand what about that book was so… unsettling… to me, but you’ve put your finger right on it.
Move to Brooklyn, little bunny! If your mother is anything like mine, she will be irrationally afraid to come here, and you’ll only have to see her when you want to! Of course she will still text you all the time freaking out because she doesn’t want you to take the subway alone, but at least you can ignore it.
what is it with parents and being afraid of the subway?!
I…have had the opposite experience. I moved to Jackson Heights and my parents moved (for work) to a country that is currently regarded as one of the murder capitals of the world. So when I skype with them they’re like “lalala that was just a gunshot outside our window, no need to worry, don’t forget to wear a sweater” while I sit at home snuggled up in the safety of Queens.
You are Michael Showalter as a teenager in that one The State sketch trying to rebel against Thomas Lennon (your parents) as a really cool dad embracing and joining in the rebelliousness.
Or Idaho! That worked for me.
Wait, could someone give me an idea of what this book is really like?
Did you read the post? Then you’ve read the book.
I wish this diverged from the book but no, this is what the book is like. This is why this book was hidden in my daughter’s bookshelf so I wouldn’t have to read it to her. We also never got her a copy of The Giving Tree.
The stupid Rainbow Fairy books are the ones that made me sit down with her and explain it was time she learned how to read them to herself.
The baby bunny proposes methods by which it will flee the mother bunny/the mundanity of daily life, and the mother bunny asserting that no matter where the baby goes, the mother will come seeking. You can see (some? all?) of the text here:
“If you run after me,” said the little bunny,
“I will become a fish in a trout stream
and I will swim away from you.”
“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother,
“I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”
“If you become a fisherman,” said the little bunny,
“I will become a rock on the mountain, high above you.”
“If you become a rock on the mountain high above me,”
said his mother, “I will become a mountain climber,
and I will climb to where you are.”
Basically, it’s the panopticon, but with all the world as the building and the mother bunny as the all-seeing eye that the little bunny cannot escape.
That said, the book does depict a narrow line we sometimes have to walk with kids as their world expands. Even as an aunt and emphatically not a parent, I’ve had to navigate that a bit with my nieces and nephews.
I remember when a niece slept over for the first time, she kept proposing possible obstacles and dangers (What if this happens? What if that happens? What if the other happens?) and I had to find a way to reassure her (If [this] happens, I will [that], tacitly expressing I am a responsible caregiver who loves you, I can handle whatever situation arises, and these worries are unlikely to occur in any case) without dismissing or diminishing the child’s feelings.
Also, blah blah blah the unblinking eye of the Almighty, sure.
This is actually really close. We have both The Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon (both by Margaret Wise Brown), and TRB is a MILLION times creepier. MOTHER IS ALWAYS THERE. ALWAYS WATCHING ALWAYS JUDGING. MOTHER SEES YOU TOUCH YOURSELF.
Also, two years later, it is the inspiration for this magnetic fields song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2RZMF2kI6GA
FUCK YOU IT’S ABOUT GOD’S LOVE
I need this on a T-shirt already.
RUN, RABBIT, RUN. Run far away (e.g., to the other side of the country) and never look back. You’ll be so much happier.
Mallory Ortberg: Bunny :: Glenn Close: bunny
Now, I need to go and add this to my husband’s “to read” tabs on his browser, so that he can accidentally read it and be afraid during our toddler’s bedtime story time.
(He’s still mad that he feels afraid when he reads The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Are You My Mother?) (Sometimes, I add in the scary parts when I read The Very Hungry Caterpillar out loud.)
You are delightful.
Well, I was just researching daycare places in our neighborhood for my soon-to-be-born child when I decided to take a little break from the anxiety of impending parenthood to read something hilarious and witty at The Toast and so I clicked over and read this and WHY GOD WHY.
Wait, this isn’t how the original goes? This is always how my mom read it…
Mallory, are you considering putting together a collection of these? By which I mean to say politely: Mallory, you should put these out as a collection.
They are a collection! I think the tag is like, “children’s stories made horrible,” or something.
Would it be feasible to collaborate with some talented artists (say, some of the contributors to The Toast) to create pasteboard books of these, or even ebooks? I imagine there’s a market of beleaguered parents who would snap ’em up.
So you CAN’T always take to the sea. Damn it.
Oh, COME ON!!!
Oh, Ouch–I read this book to my sons when they were little. They felt wanted and safe. Now that my eldest is 20, it would be creepy, agreed (even for my 16-yr-old).
Marry me, Mallory.
Yes but can we talk about “Love You Forever” at some point? Or is that just a creepy enough children’s book on its own? The mom does a B&E into her adult son’s bedroom in the middle of the night and then sings to him while he sleeps, is what I’m saying.
My mom used to read that to us as kids and now I refuse to let it into my house.
This, this. That book simultaneously makes me WEEP TERRIBLE TEARS and SHUDDER BECAUSE IT IS AWFUL and creepy creepy creepy. CREEPY.
I felt the same way. I’m not quite sure how knowing the background story changes my feelings (the author wrote it as a love song to his two stillborn babies).
“Love You Forever” is the ultimate example of a book written exclusively for children. Yes, it’s creepy as an adult, but when you are four years old and just wrapping your little head around the idea that someday you will grow up and move away, it is THE MOST REASSURING STORY EVER.
This is my relationship with my mother, right here.
I know that feel, bro. I know that feel.
Great, now I feel like a horrible son for email-arguing with my mom about Woody Allen.
AS YOU SHOULD.
oof.
So it definitely says terrible things about my parenting that I found this ending very satisfying. But I will fully celebrate being the implacable, all-knowing mater for as long as I can convince my five-year-old that this is true.
I feel I am doing things right because said five-year-old reported yesterday that he had been busy with meetings all day, “mostly about poop.”
I don’t know it’s clever and sad. It is sort of like two macho guys comparing scars and along comes this guy and shows them his gangreenous limb that will eventually kill him.
Oh, my goodness! What, oh, what will you do to the Velveteen Rabbit? (Hint, hint)
I used to read this one and Love You Forever to my kids. I couldn’t get through Love You Forever with out bawling, but I did, at the same time, recognize its inherent creepiness.
brb, becoming bride to the sea.
This is why men pretend their mothers don’t exist past the age of twenty, Mallory!
(I mean we’re still going to call once a week but still. DON’T EXIST. WE SPONTANEOUSLY CAME INTO EXISTENCE.)
“I’m bigger and I’m faster and I will always beat you.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0MBL-DyXaE
I need this on a T-shirt already.
I’m an adult human being with a certain sense of humor and taste, so I enjoyed this version.
but.
BUT.
I’m also the parent of an almost-five-year-old and when we read this book he feels reassured by it, because he has a lot of typical little kid anxiety about being separated from his parents, being lost, etc. And unlike “I love you forever,” this book is not pandering emotional manipulation. It really is a book about reassuring little kids that they have a firm foundation to build on, that they have adults they can trust to take the time and effort to come after them.
As an abuse survivor whose mother was exactly like the bunny in your terrific (terrifying!) satire, I feel so validated that someone else saw the creepy potential in this story. Every time my toddler pulls it off the shelf, I feel triggered!
(Not to argue with the commenters who complained “you ruined a sweet book!” — I’m glad you had a better childhood than I did.)
You didn’t even need to rewrite it. The original always pretty much sounded like this to me. No matter what you do, YOU CAN’T GET AWAY FROM MOM. I hate that book!
This is amazing!
Post a re-telling of a classic children’s story, get dragged into Rosie O’Donnell’s family drama….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3264330/I…
That’s Toast From Minecraft (if you name a bunny toast in minecraft with a nametag then it will change to a different texure of a never seen bunny also theres a command to show a KILLER BUNNY
There would probably be copyright issues or other legal trouble if someone were to try to organize and distribute a collection of established works, even if they've been altered from the original published works. The authors/publishing companies would probably not be keen on potential profits being stolen from them for the sake of a few laughs.