In the midst of strife and terror, Whiskey Jenny and I return to old favorites. This week we’re talking about children’s books that we love that an insufficient number of other people do, and then reviewing Richard Adams’s classic book Watership Down. We have a lot of feelings about Bigwig. Maybe we tear up a little. Who’s to say.
You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!
Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around!
1:23 – What We’re Reading
4:35 – Serial Box Book Club: Episode 2 of Geek Actually
16:17 – Rescuing children’s books from obscurity
32:15 – Watership Down, Richard Adams
58:35 – What We’re Reading for Next Time!
Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).
Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour
Transcript under the cut!
THEME SONG: You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to, or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hello, and welcome back to the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys. I’m Whiskey Jenny.
GIN JENNY: And I’m Gin Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: And we’re back to talk about books and literary happenings. On today’s podcast, we’ll review what we’re both reading. We have a new installment of the Serial Box book club, chapters two and three of Geeks and Witches.
GIN JENNY: Geek Actually, as it is also known.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure, to some people. We’re going to chat about some books from childhood that we never encountered many other people who read. So lifting them out of obscurity. And then we read another classic that we both had already read and loved, Watership Down, by Richard Adams. And I’m sure we will squeal over that a lot.
GIN JENNY: Yep.
WHISKEY JENNY: And then Gin Jenny will tell us what we’re reading next time.
GIN JENNY: Sounds great.
WHISKEY JENNY: So, Gin Jenny, what are you reading now?
GIN JENNY: So I am reading The Hamilton Battalion, which is a collection of three romance novellas centering on characters who are Hamilton family adjacent. Alexander Hamilton, we are speaking of.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure.
GIN JENNY: And they’re by Rose Lerner, Alyssa Cole, and Courtney Milan, which listeners of this podcast may know are among my very favorite romance novelists. So I’ve just started, and I’m in the middle of Rose Lerner’s novella, and it is just delightful so far.
And I’m also reading another romance novel by Alisha Rai, which is the second in a series about two families who betrayed each other ten years ago, and it’s about the grown children of those families. So the first one was about how the daughter of one family and the son of the other family had a scandalous forbidden love. And then this one is about the widow of one of the sons who is now in love with a different one of the sons. Gasp!
WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh. Sounds very dramatic.
GIN JENNY: It is. It’s very dramatic and angsty. I enjoyed the first one a lot and I’m excited to read this one. What are you reading?
WHISKEY JENNY: I have two updates. So I checked back in on one of my favorite series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, by Alexander McCall Smith. I was at the beach with my parents and we stopped in the little beach bookstore, and they had the newest out, which was like seven past where I am. And I was like, oh, you know what? That is what I want to read, but the one that I’m on, not that one.
So I did. I got it from the library, and got it on my handy e-reader, and it was delightful. I think this one is called The Lost Art of Gratitude. It was just a delight. It was as lovely as it has always been. Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher, and she’s well-off, and she just sort of is very moral and thinks about moral philosophy a lot. Tries to do the right thing. And she has a younger boyfriend, and they have a child. And they love each other so much, and everything is great.
GIN JENNY: Oh, that sounds wonderful. It sounds like a really great beach book.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it’s lovely. And even the problems that she gets involved with— you know, sometimes they’re a little more, not everything is great all the time. For her, everything is great. And it usually works out OK.
And then I also started We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yay! Oh, goody. Well, I hope you like it.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m about halfway through.
GIN JENNY: I will try not to pester you about it. But keep you posted when you finish it.
WHISKEY JENNY: When I started it, it had an introduction by Jonathan Lethem. And I always debate whether or not I should read those, because sometimes they give stuff away. But I was like, no, OK, if they put it at the beginning of the book.
GIN JENNY: Oh, Whiskey Jenny, you shouldn’t have fallen for that!
WHISKEY JENNY: I fell for it. I fell for it, and it gave stuff away, and I was like, but why would you do that to me, Jonathan Lethem. So I’m a little mad at Jonathan Lethem right now.
GIN JENNY: Well, I understand. But I think what you should be mad at is the whole institution of introductions to classic literature. I think they should put them at the end of the book.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think they should, too!
GIN JENNY: Like you said, they often reveal spoilers. And I don’t care, but some people do.
WHISKEY JENNY: Or write them so they don’t— if you have to have some setup at the beginning, then just write them so they don’t have any spoilers. Why is this so hard?
GIN JENNY: I couldn’t agree more. I think they should change the convention of how introductions to classics work. Because people are always like, oh, you should already know. It’s like, no, you’re picking up the book to read it. You can assume that a lot of people haven’t read it and that’s why they’re picking it up.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s why it’s in my hands.
GIN JENNY: That bugs me. It’s a pet peeve.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I fell for it. I don’t know why.
GIN JENNY: I’m sorry.
WHISKEY JENNY: Let’s start a campaign. Let’s change it.
GIN JENNY: All right. I’ll think of a hashtag. We’ll get this in motion.
WHISKEY JENNY: Great.
GIN JENNY: Well, that sounds great. That all sounds wonderful.
WHISKEY JENNY: So we read also chapters two and three of Geeks and Witches.
GIN JENNY: Geek Actually. I like how Whiskey Jenny is just not having any of the book’s actual title.
WHISKEY JENNY: I really did try, because I had to Google it to read them. So I had to stop and think what to Google. And there’s a third alternate title— because I sometimes call it Geek Love, as well.
GIN JENNY: You do.
WHISKEY JENNY: And now there’s a third alternate title to plug in my head, which is Geek Love Actually. Since that has “actually” in it, now I’m like, OK, it’s not either one of those. It’s not Geek Love and it’s not Geek Actually. But it is one of those.
GIN JENNY: No, it’s one of those. Well, I need you to know that I’m very tired and distracted lately. So I kept trying to go do the reading for this week’s book club. I kept typing Birchbox into my internet browser, and then I would get distracted. And then I would forget that Birchbox wasn’t where I intended to go. I’d be like, oh, Birchbox, that’s a good idea.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, lovely! I love Birchbox.
GIN JENNY: And I’d look at makeup, and then five minutes later I’d be like, OK well, I now remember I need to go read Geeks and Witches. And then the whole thing would happen again. This happened three time in a row.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wow. Did you get anything from Birchbox?
GIN JENNY: No I was just looking at it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Just browsing.
GIN JENNY: What would happen is, I’d go there, and I would forget what I had gone there for, because it was a mistake all along. So I’d be like, oh, I must’ve been intending to look up how to use one of my recent samples. So I’d look through recent boxes and be like, oh yeah, I don’t know what toner is.
WHISKEY JENNY: Right, right.
GIN JENNY: It was a very stupid cycle.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, it sounds like you learned a lot, though, about toner and lip liner.
GIN JENNY: You know, I did in the moment, but I immediately forgot what toner is again and I still don’t know.
WHISKEY JENNY: Toner is related to face cleaning, right?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I guess. It’s so liquidy.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think you put it on a little pad and wipe your face with it, right?
GIN JENNY: Oh, on a little pad! OK, OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, like a little cotton ball.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, yeah. OK, cool.
WHISKEY JENNY: The thing I don’t understand is primer.
GIN JENNY: Oh, I understand primer.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is it the same concept as priming a wall?
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I’m not a wall. [LAUGHTER] Make your makeup better, then.
GIN JENNY: Well, I don’t know, because I’m not a makeup expert, but my understanding— listeners who are proper girls are listening to this and being like, you guys are idiots. But my understanding of primer is that it’s supposed to be a color correcting function. So my primer is green, and I put it on, and it’s supposed to cancel out some of my natural pinkness.
WHISKEY JENNY: I thought it was, make your skin ready for the actual makeup to come on. And I was like, well then why don’t you just make your makeup so that I can put it on my face? Why— we don’t need three steps here!
GIN JENNY: I think that I am correct. Although what you said sounds really reasonable, too, so I’m doubting myself.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: All right, well, if anyone has any insight you can give us on primer.
GIN JENNY: Anyway, so, Geek Actually.
WHISKEY JENNY: This seems like something that would be in the Geek Actually Slack channel.
GIN JENNY: It does.
WHISKEY JENNY: So what did you think of chapters 2 and 3 once you read them?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, once I read them, I enjoyed them. When I finally was able to get to serialbox.com, I enjoyed them a lot. I’m glad you brought up the Slack, because I still really enjoy their friend Slack channel.
WHISKEY JENNY: Me, too!
GIN JENNY: These two chapters each opened with a Slack conversation, and I was really into that. Although sometimes I was like, guys come on, take that to DM. You don’t want to say that in front of everybody.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, for sure. You guys can have private messages. It’s fine.
GIN JENNY: So Michelle, who works in publishing, tells the Slack channel that her husband is leaving her. She’s like, OK, my husband’s leaving me. Bye, I gotta go to a thing. And then after she leaves the Slack channel, her sister is like, well it’s not really unexpected. And I was like, girl, you’re in general. Go DM somebody about that.
WHISKEY JENNY: Christina does not seem like the most tactful person, though.
GIN JENNY: She doesn’t, no. It’s not out of character. But I was like, oh my gosh, she’s going to come back and catch up on the general channel and her feelings are going to be hurt.
WHISKEY JENNY: They’re going to be hurt, yeah. I wish more of it happened in that Slack channel. I think some of those are my favorite parts.
GIN JENNY: Me too. And I think that’s partly because right now the characters are all really separate. They all have very separate plots and don’t really hang out. And I really enjoy their friendship, so I think when they’re in the Slack channel, we get to see them being friends and I like that a lot. What did you think in general?
WHISKEY JENNY: No, I enjoyed it, besides what we’ve already said. I do have a question. Do you know what the acronym AFK means?
GIN JENNY: AFK?
WHISKEY JENNY: Mhm.
GIN JENNY: AFK. No, I don’t know what that means. Oh, Away From Keyboard. I just googled it. Away from keyboard. I don’t think that’s a thing people say. I’ve never heard of that before.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK. Thank you for googling.
GIN JENNY: You’re welcome. I don’t believe that’s real, though.
WHISKEY JENNY: People say BRB.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, people say BRB. Or they say back in a bit.
One of my biggest responses to reading these two chapters was that I got kind of invested in the media that they’re talking about being real, and I was kind of sad that they weren’t.
WHISKEY JENNY: Which ones? Because some of it is.
GIN JENNY: Like Michelle, who is the publisher, meets with an agent who’s peddling a space opera with a Latina protagonist, and I was like—
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, that sounded great.
GIN JENNY: —that sounds amazing. I want to read that.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, I have a hard time telling— because sometimes they do mention real stuff, too. Like she goes to a Settlers of Catan game night and stuff. Also they mention World of Warcraft, and I’m like, definitely heard of those. Therefore I’m assuming everything else you mentioned is real. But it’s not, turns out.
Well, since you mentioned Michelle as the editor, our fears have been founded in friendship-editor tension that’s happening between her and Aditi, the author that she’s editing. And I don’t like it. It’s making me nervous.
GIN JENNY: This is another reason why I’m sad that we don’t get to see more of them being friends together in the same place. Because I just like their friendship a lot, and I would love to see them actually hanging out. But instead Michelle’s going to stupid publishing parties and sleeping with gross guys.
WHISKEY JENNY: Did she sleep with him?
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, I missed it.
GIN JENNY: Didn’t she?
WHISKEY JENNY: I thought they were just flirting.
GIN JENNY: The erotica publisher?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: No, I think she says in chapter three that she slept with him.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, I missed that. Sorry.
GIN JENNY: Well, hang on, let me check, because now I’m doubting myself.
WHISKEY JENNY: I should read slower, maybe.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, she had sex with him. It’s at the very end of chapter three. Which, by the way, I hated that guy immediately. He hits on Michelle at her publishing party and he says, I quote— he publishes erotica— and he’s like, “We’re not like those housewife erotica publishers pumping out Fifty Shades knockoffs.” Like, dude, you can be a thing without shading all the other versions of that thing. And then he’s like, “oh, we publish art books, so it’s art, really,” and I was just so out on him immediately. So I hope he’s not Michelle’s love interest going forward.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wait, did I skip one?
GIN JENNY: Did you skip one?
WHISKEY JENNY: I think I skipped one!
GIN JENNY: Do you think you went from two to four?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Oh no!
WHISKEY JENNY: I was reading two, and then I said read— it said do you want to read the next one? And I said yes, and I think it took me to four!
GIN JENNY: Did you read the one where you find out what’s up with Aditi’s marriage, and the in-laws come over?
WHISKEY JENNY: No.
GIN JENNY: Oh no! [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: I read two and four.
GIN JENNY: That’s ridiculous! No wonder you didn’t know that she had slept with stupid terrible Nick.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m going to go to episode two and see where it points you to at the bottom.
GIN JENNY: Episode two does end with Nick and Michelle flirting at the publishing party.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. And then Nick never showed up again, and I was like, I guess that was fun—
GIN JENNY: Just a flirt.
WHISKEY JENNY: [GASP] It does.
GIN JENNY: It does, you’re right. I’m looking at it.
WHISKEY JENNY: At the bottom it says continue on to episode four.
GIN JENNY: Continue on to episode four. I’m going to— you know what, I’m going to contact them. This will not stand.
WHISKEY JENNY: It goes from “The Invisible Woman,” and then it goes to “The Long Con.” [GASP] I’m so sorry, I’m just like— I feel so betrayed by my phone.
GIN JENNY: You’re not betrayed by your phone. No, the web site just has a small error, listeners. Sorry you’re listening to us discover this on air. OK, well, that’s OK. What we’ll do is, we’ll read three and four for next time.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, I’m so sorry. I feel like I keep messing up which ones we’re reading. But let’s talk about episode two.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I definitely messed up last time, so this is your first error. And it’s not even your fault.
Yeah, but I’m still enjoying it. I still think I like Taneesha the best and I’m most invested in her storyline. But I really enjoyed all the stuff— you mentioned this last time, that Christina works in film, but we didn’t really see much of her job. But with this one we saw a bunch of her job. And I thought it was all really— all the workplace stuff was really interesting.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, definitely. Although I’m on edge every time the Vivian person shows up— or Vivi shows up on page. My tension level ratchets up so high.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yeah, Vivi is an actress on Christina’s show. It sounds like she works for a sort of CW or SyFy type of show, and Vivi is a guest actress that she— Christina’s a production assistant. I don’t really understand what the jobs are.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s what she says her title is, production assistant.
GIN JENNY: She does. OK, cool, cool, cool. So she’s a production assistant, and she’s been assigned to sort of mind this guest actress Vivi. And Vivi is kind of a loose cannon.
WHISKEY JENNY: She definitely is.
GIN JENNY: So she brings her own trailer. She’s always high. She and Christina sleep together, which seems like a terrible idea.
WHISKEY JENNY: She is sometimes, in some ways, a lot nicer and easier and more fun than the regular stars that Christina has to shepherd around. But she also seems like a real wild card.
GIN JENNY: Well, plus there’s been suggestions from the other characters that Christina maybe is somewhat irresponsible.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mhm. There has been. Yes.
GIN JENNY: And we do see that in her behavior, as well. She’s coming to work really hung over, and getting high at work and stuff. So it doesn’t seem like Vivi necessarily brings out the best in her. I’m not surprised you don’t care for her, Whiskey Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: She just makes me so nervous! [LAUGHTER]
Did Michelle get called into her boss’s office in chapter two?
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: They’re like, OK, no, but this is really, really important. And everyone’s jobs is hanging on you. So please make sure your friend writes stuff, thanks.
GIN JENNY: I think we mentioned this last time. The publisher that Michelle works for has given Aditi this huge advance. And if she doesn’t— if the book doesn’t do really well, then they’re going to be in serious trouble financially. She really has to do all the publicity push that they’re working on getting her to do, and that she does not want to do. And she keeps missing deadlines.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think the story is doing a good job of making you feel for both Michelle and Aditi in that situation.
GIN JENNY: [RELUCTANTLY] I guess.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, no? You don’t? Which—?
GIN JENNY: I have a job that’s kind of— it’s a different sphere, but I have a job that is quite similar to Michelle’s. So I’m probably more on Michelle’s side. Also, you know, I’m a little impatient with people missing deadlines. Like, hit your deadlines, people. But yeah, I think the book does a good job. I’m just coming from a specific place.
WHISKEY JENNY: Let’s talk about Elli, though.
GIN JENNY: OK, let’s talk about Elli.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ellie gets mad at her mom for saying, perhaps you should get a job and support yourself.
GIN JENNY: Yes. I’m curious to see where the story goes with Elli, because it does seem like right now it’s kind of backing her up in not wanting to get a job. And if she doesn’t want to get a steady job, fine, but she needs to be able to support herself. She can’t be living with her parents and not paying rent.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, not if they don’t want her to, which they don’t. Like, if they were fine with it, sure, yeah.
GIN JENNY: But they’re not fine with it.
WHISKEY JENNY: And you don’t get to get mad at them for feeling that.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, she’s like, oh, I just want to do cosplay. Again, I want to make cool costumes and go to cons.
WHISKEY JENNY: Absolutely! With her own money.
GIN JENNY: Exactly.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I think four does not continue to back her up in the no job thing.
GIN JENNY: OK, good. That’s good to know.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, the other question I wanted to ask about Michelle’s terrifying talking to from her boss. Her boss is like, we need this to be the next— and then names an author, who is a real author. Have you heard of that author before? Am I just really out of the loop?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, she mentioned Sabaa Tahir. And yes, I’ve heard of her. She’s a YA author. I think she’s probably between a Laini Taylor, who wrote Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Angie Thomas, who wrote The Hate U Give. You know, I don’t want to trash talk her. I know she was on the New York Times bestselling list, but I’m not sure for how long or at what rank.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is Laini Taylor more or less famous than Angie Thomas?
GIN JENNY: Less. I think less.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, sorry. That was in order of increasing fame.
GIN JENNY: I think. I mean, I don’t know. Proper YA people who are listening to this will be like, Jenny is so wrong. The wrongest of wrong. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m sorry to make you do those comparisons between all lovely writers.
GIN JENNY: All great writers, yeah, that I like. Actually, I haven’t read anything by Sabaa Tahir. I’ve been meaning to, but they’re always checked out at my library, which I guess is a measure of their popularity.
WHISKEY JENNY: I was just surprised that he was using that as a comparison to say it has to do super, super, super well and keep us all afloat, like Sabaa Tahir did with her books.
Anything else you want to talk about Geeks and Witches?
GIN JENNY: That’s all I had on chapter two of Geeks and Witches. Listeners, we are going to be better organized next time. I messed up the first one, Serial Box website actually messed up the second one for Whiskey Jenny. But next week, for sure, we’re going to be reading episodes three and four.
WHISKEY JENNY: Episodes three and four.
GIN JENNY: We promise
WHISKEY JENNY: Write it down now.
GIN JENNY: All right, well, I look forward to that. This week, though, we are talking about books that we read when we were wee tots that not a lot of people did.
GIN JENNY: That we believe should be better known.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: We agreed to do five each, and each of us separately were like, oh, whole five is too few.
JENNYS: I really want to do six.
WHISKEY JENNY: So it worked out great for both of us. We did six.
GIN JENNY: As always, podcast soulmates.
WHISKEY JENNY: All right, well, what’s your first one you want to shine a light on?
GIN JENNY: This will be very frustrating for everyone, because you probably have no way of accessing it, which is why I’m mentioning it first. Because I’m really angry that it’s so extremely out of print. So the first one I’m going to mention is The Ghost of Opalina, by Peggy Bacon.
And it’s a story about these three kids who move into a big old rambling country house. And one night they’re all playing late in their playroom, and the ghost of a cat appears on the armchair. And she can talk, and her name is Opalina. And she agrees to tell them about her nine lives, which basically means just that nine different families who lived in the house over the years, ever since the Revolution.
And it’s so delightful. Each chapter has a different story of different kids having different adventures. And the best part is that for each story, the author drew little tiny portraits of the characters in the story, and they’re in the margins. Like, little cameo portraits.
WHISKEY JENNY: Aw.
GIN JENNY: I know. It’s so cute and sweet. Yeah, it’s just amazing. It’s a terrific book. My mom read it to me and my sisters when we were little bitty. And you can’t find a copy for love or money. It’s like $400 a copy.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s such a shame.
GIN JENNY: I know. I just wish someone would put it back in print with the little cameo portraits. They’re so— it’s so charming. Although as I’m saying this and thinking about the different time periods, I’m a little bit worried that if I go back and read it, it’s going to be super racist.
WHISKEY JENNY: That is a concern.
GIN JENNY: It’s been a while since I read it.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’ll just make that a blanket statement. It’s been a while since I read all of these.
GIN JENNY: Same.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I was much less wise when I was younger.
GIN JENNY: Exactly. I think we all were. So that’s my first one. What about you?
WHISKEY JENNY: I’ve decided I’m going in chronological order.
GIN JENNY: Oh, ooh, exciting.
WHISKEY JENNY: Right? I’m pretty excited about it. So my first one— and we have actually talked about this before offline— is Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, by Margaret Sidney. And it is about a family with five children, and they don’t have a lot of money.
GIN JENNY: And their father is dead, if I recall correctly.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I think they just live with their mother. And then they meet a very well-to-do family, and they merge families. Kind of. Right?
GIN JENNY: It’s so good. When Whiskey Jenny asked me if I was going to put Five Little peppers on my list, I was like, no. And my favorite is a different one than Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. This is a series, and I liked Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, but the one that I really loved is— hang on, I’m looking up the title. You can get all of these on Project Gutenberg, I’m happy to report.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, they’re pretty old. They came out in 1881, I think the first one was published, it says.
GIN JENNY: So I liked the second one, Five Little Peppers Midway, which is about them being rich and stuff.
WHISKEY JENNY: I like them because they’re still— so they didn’t start out with a lot of money, and so they point out a lot of things that people with money do wrong. and I like that.
GIN JENNY: Usually, like with the Boxcar Children, I loved the first Boxcar Children book, but when I read later ones, I was like, oh this is garbage. I want them to be broke again.
WHISKEY JENNY: They’re too soft. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: So I don’t know why, with Five Little Peppers I felt the opposite, but here we are.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think they do a really good job of keeping their characters, despite this sudden influx of cash. [LAUGHTER] What’s your next one?
GIN JENNY: OK, so my next one— and it was hard for me to choose, because I love this author’s kids books across the board. So I chose A Doll’s House, by Rumer Godden. She wrote a number of books about dolls and the adventures that they have, and I know that sounds really twee and terrible. But they’re actually just really charming and surprisingly unsentimental in a lot of ways. And A Doll’s House is about a family of dolls, and they’re all different types of dolls. Like, one of them is passed down from the children’s grandmother. One of them they got out of a cracker box. One of them, I think, belonged to some other family and was given as a gift. It’s kind of a found family of dolls.
But they only live in a series of shoe boxes, and what they really want is a proper doll’s house to live in. And so it’s the story of them getting a proper doll’s house. Because the two little girls inherit a really large dollhouse from an elderly relative. But when they get it, it’s all messed up, and the tapestries are all torn, and it’s all dusty and terrible.
And the little girls set about renovating the little doll’s house. And they have to get enough money to pay for the little furnishings.
WHISKEY JENNY: Awww!
GIN JENNY: I know! It’s really sweet. And so they have to figure out ways to pay for everything. And the dolls are constantly like, oh, what will happen to our dollhouse? And there’s a mean, bad doll who comes to live with them and tries to ruin everything.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh no!
GIN JENNY: Yes! It’s amazing. I love it so much. I like a book about home renovation, honestly.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, no, it sounds very nesting. Like the dolls are nesting.
GIN JENNY: It is. And I have a copy of it that a friend sent me, but it has illustrations by Tasha Tudor, who did the illustrations for The Secret Garden and Little Princess that I had when I was growing up. So those are also really pretty.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think we talked about this on one of our holiday podcasts, but one of my favorite holiday books was The Story of Holly and Ivy, by Rumer Godden, which also involves the tale of a doll. And I didn’t realize that dolls were her bread and butter.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s cool.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. What’s your next one?
WHISKEY JENNY: My next one is The Good Master, by Kate Seredy. It’s got a sequel that I also really liked called The Singing Tree. And it’s set in the Hungarian countryside. And this crazy girl comes and lives with her cousin and her aunt and her uncle, and becomes a part of their family on the farm.
The first one is, they sort of have village hijinks, and then in the second one, World War I begins, and it’s pretty dark, but also it’s still for children. So yeah, but they’re both really good I thought. Do you remember reading them?
GIN JENNY: Yes, they were really— they were just that kind of kid book that makes you feel sort of safe and comfortable. Well, the first one was. [LAUGHTER] Well, excellent choice.
WHISKEY JENNY: What’s your next one?
GIN JENNY: OK, so my next one is this book called Lost Magic, by Berthe Amoss. And I bought this, I think, at a Scholastic book fair at my school when I was a kid. And it’s so good. I’ve never met anyone else who has read it. And I think that’s because it’s a Louisiana author, so I’m guessing it had a smaller distribution, maybe.
But it’s set in sort of feudalism times, I guess. And it’s about this woman who is a “wise woman,” quote, so she does medicines and stuff. And I think she doesn’t know what her family background is, and she becomes the nanny to the Lord’s daughter. And the Lord’s wife is trying to have a baby, but she can’t get pregnant and her health is very poor. And the wise woman keeps trying to help her get pregnant, and she’s so desperate to help her get pregnant— because she feels like her job hinges on it, I guess— that she ends up meddling with bad powers that she oughtn’t. Has and things go awry and the fairies steal the daughter Eleanor and replace her with a terrible changeling.
WHISKEY JENNY: [GASP] Ooh, it’s a changeling story! You love changelings.
GIN JENNY: I love changeling stories. This is probably why, because this is probably one of the first ones I read. It’s really creepy. I read it when I was probably eight or nine, and it has left me with, to this day, a terror of mandrake.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wait, what are mandrakes again?
GIN JENNY: It’s a kind of plant, and they have sort of humanish looking faces. They don’t have faces. They’re plants. But the way the roots, I guess, are— the way they look, they kind of look like little babies.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, yes.
GIN JENNY: Like squooshed up, ugly babies. So they feature prominently in folk magic of different places— England, including. They’re in Harry Potter. They cure the basilisk.
WHISKEY JENNY: Right.
GIN JENNY: So that’s mine. What about you?
WHISKEY JENNY: My next one is The Silver Pencil, by Alice Dalgliesh.
GIN JENNY: Never heard of it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Great. It’s a little girl whose father dies when she’s young. He’s alive in the very beginning, but he dies on the page, I guess. And he had previously given her a silver pencil to write, because she really loves reading and writing. And they have to move back to England, and then somewhere else. And she’s coping with the loss of her father, trying to make a new life in the new schools that she has to join, and trying to practice writing and get better at writing.
And I just really enjoyed it. It’s kind of one of those quiet, sort of melancholy books. Not a whole lot happens, but it’s just lovely.
GIN JENNY: Well that sounds great.
WHISKEY JENNY: What’s your next one?
GIN JENNY: So next up is a book called— it’s actually a series called The Great Brain, by John Fitzgerald. Did you ever read these, Whiskey Jenny?
WHISKEY JENNY: Hm, you’ll have to keep talking.
GIN JENNY: So it’s about a Mormon family, I think around the turn of the 20th century. So I think they’re either in the late 1800s, early 1900s. And the narrator has an older brother who is very brilliant and is constantly practicing cons on all the other kids in their town. He’s constantly thinking up these extravagant plans to con people out of their money. They’re all really fun. The ideas he comes up with are wild. And I think— my understanding is these books are at least somewhat based in the author’s childhood, which is also fun.
So The Great Brain is the first one. There’s a later one where they go to school and The Great Brain does all his tricks at the school. They’re just really fun. I love a con. I actually, at the most recent book sale that I went to, I went with some friends and I bought The Great Brain. And one of my friends who was with me had read it. And he was the only person I’ve ever known who has read this book besides me. But I loved them when I was a kid. I got them out of library all the time.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s so fun when you find those, too, when you find the one other person in the world, it feels like, who has also read it. And you can geek out about it together. That’s really fun.
GIN JENNY: Yes it is. So listeners, if we mention a book that you love, please email us.
WHISKEY JENNY: Let us know!
GIN JENNY: We would be so excited. All right, what’s your next one?
WHISKEY JENNY: My next one is, again, two. And I’m sorry to keep cheating and bundling them like this. But I’m doing it as one, because my copy, that I’m looking at in my hands right now, had them together. And it was Mandy and The Last of The Really Great Whangdoodles, by Julie Andrews.
GIN JENNY: Oh, I never read those. I always saw them at my grandmother’s house, and I just never got to them.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I really enjoyed both of those books. They’re both, I feel, really plot heavy. And I remember, whenever I was reading both of them, I was always like, oh, my god, what’s going to happen next? They’re very high-tension to eight-year-old me, or whatever.
In the first one, Mandy’s an orphan, and I think finds an old house and has adventures. And it’s sort of Secret Garden-ish, I would say.
GIN JENNY: Oh, fun.
WHISKEY JENNY: And then The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, the whangdoodle is this sort of unicorn-esque creature. And it’s more of a quest story with these three siblings who visit this fantastic world. And it’s probably all about the power of imagination or something, but I really, really liked it.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I also want to emphasize, this is Julie Andrews the singer, right? Who was in Sound of Music and—
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, a little flap is like, “Julie Andrews Edwards is known to millions of movie fans as the star of Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and other films.”
GIN JENNY: Oh my god, yes, Thoroughly Modern— Listeners, if you have not watched the movie of Thoroughly Modern Millie with Julie Andrews, it is very racist, but it also has a lot of really charming moments. So it’s one of those things where you’re just like, wow, this is— I can’t really recommend it, but if you can get past the really intense racism, other parts of it are good. Thanks, America!
WHISKEY JENNY: What’s your next one?
GIN JENNY: OK. So my next one is called Robin’s Country, and it’s by Monica Furlong. Monica Furlong is this author who wrote, I think, four books ever, and three of them are about— kind of along the same lines as Lost Magic in some ways. They’re about old time wise women. And I really like them a lot.
Robin’s Country, though, is especially fun, because it’s about a little boy who gets taken in by Robin Hood and his band of merry men.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh!
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s so charming. He has— the kid has some kind of traumatic past that I can’t remember, and he’s unable to speak. But he gets taken in by Robin Hood’s gang, and hangs out with them and does adventures and learns to be more competent in himself and get past his difficult past. And it’s just great. It’s just lovely. I’ve made myself want to read it all over again by talking about it.
Now you. What’s next?
WHISKEY JENNY: Next for me is the mozart season, by Virginia Euwer Wolff. I think this year it just won an award called the Phoenix Award. And I think this award is a really great idea. I think we should adopt it everywhere else.
GIN JENNY: Yes. I love that idea.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s given to older books who didn’t win awards when they first came out, but deserved to, basically. Here we go. “Phoenix Award annually recognize one English language children’s book published 20 years earlier that did not then win a major literary award.” I really like this idea.
GIN JENNY: I do, too. That’s really fun.
WHISKEY JENNY: So I think it won recently. So hopefully more people will now be reading it, as well. But it’s about a young girl who’s really good at playing violin. Her family is musical, and she is in a competition. I guess the driver of it is this summer she’s entered into a competition to play a certain— Mozart’s Fourth Violin Concerto.
GIN JENNY: Oh, OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: I really liked it because— I don’t she’s a musical prodigy, but she’s very musical, and she’s very good at the violin, and she’s one of the finalists in this competition. But it’s also really just about— she’s still a kid, and it’s about her life that summer, and dealing with the pressure of that competition. But her parents are really great. They’re not stage parents or anything. And she’s just trying to figure out how to live her life but also be a musician.
And I think it’s really good at writing about music, which is a very difficult thing to do. And they have, one of their family friends is a very talented opera singer. And she comes and stays and talks to the younger Allegra about having a musical life. And there was this one— that opera singer gives one example about how every single time you play that piece, it has to be beautiful. But if you want to keep doing it, you have to keep finding something new about it. And she compares it to every time an NBA player makes a three-pointer. And it was just a really interesting metaphor, and a really cool way, I thought, about talking about music and performance. And it was just really great.
GIN JENNY: That sounds great. It sounds amazing.
WHISKEY JENNY: I liked it a lot. So yeah, what’s your last one?
GIN JENNY: My final one is Time at the Top, by Edward Ormondroyd. It starts with, this girl called Susan has disappeared, and her father is frantic. And then her father disappears, too. And the writer, who’s narrating the sort of frame device, I think, finds Susan’s diary eventually and then pieces together this narrative.
But what happens with Susan is that she does a good deed for an old lady on the streets. And the lady says, I’ll give you three, just three. And Susan thinks it’s three wishes, but it’s totally not three wishes. What it is, is, she has three opportunities to time travel using the old elevator in her building.
WHISKEY JENNY: Whaaat?
GIN JENNY: So when she takes the elevator— yeah! So when she takes the elevator all the way to the top, it lets her out in 1886 or something. And she makes friends with the kids from that time, and it’s just really sort of funny and tropey and delightful. And there’s a sequel, as well, which is also very excellent. And there’s a villain that they defeat, and it’s just really fun.
WHISKEY JENNY: It sounds fun. Time travel.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. All right, what’s your very final one?
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, so as I was about to talk about it, I’m not nearly as excited about it as The Mozart Season. So I’m just going to go with five.
GIN JENNY: OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: Read The Mozart Season again.
GIN JENNY: But now I really want to know. I’m so curious what got bumped.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was Welcome to the Ark, by Stephanie Tolan. It was also fine. Welcome to the Ark is these four kids are in a mental hospital, and have sort of a psychic connection. And then they start reaching out to other kids around the world and realize that they can all have this psychic connection. Then I think one of the doctors at the place is trying to use that, not for good. They have to defeat him.
GIN JENNY: Cool.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it was fine. But The Mozart Season, man.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I did just want to add, because I feel this should be said, that we’re talking about older books, so all of mine are by white authors, largely because the publishing scene has always been very white. And that’s changing a little bit now, but not as much as I would like it to. But definitely 20 and 30 and more than that years ago, a lot of white authors were getting published and promoted. And that was really sad, that I’m sure we missed out on a lot of amazing kids’ books.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, we definitely did.
GIN JENNY: And I’m excited to live now and hopefully see the publishing world get more and more diverse.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Well, do you want to talk about the classic children’s book that we read for this week? Although children’s book is a weird way of describing it, because it’s so intense.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t think I would call it a children’s book, but I am excited to read it— or talk about it. I think you could be pretty young and enjoy it. I think it’s one of those where— sort of like Lord of the Rings, I guess, is adult, but you can enjoy it from pretty—
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s universal appeal.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, exactly.
GIN JENNY: So how did it hold up for you, Whiskey Jenny, on this reread?
WHISKEY JENNY: Um, amazing! [LAUGHTER] Still really into it.
GIN JENNY: I’m so into it.
WHISKEY JENNY: I loved it. I loved it so much. I have read it a lot, and I’ve read it a lot as an adult, too, so I wasn’t worried that I wasn’t going to love it. I was pretty excited to read it again and talk about it. I’m never going to read it and not like it.
GIN JENNY: Well, since we both love it so much, I was thinking we could just kind of go through it, all the stuff that happens.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, cool. [LAUGHTER] I’m going to apologize in advance if I start crying.
GIN JENNY: There’s a lot of really emotional stuff.
WHISKEY JENNY: There really is.
GIN JENNY: So we’re going to talk about everything that happens in this book, and we’re going to spoil it completely. Like, every single event. So if you haven’t read it yet, you should read it immediately. But also, don’t continue listening.
We start off with two rabbits, brothers, Hazel and Fiver. And Fiver’s kind of a runt. He was the runt of his litter, and he’s still a smallish rabbit.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s what his name means. It’s his translated name in rabbit. It’s the littlest one.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So we start out with, Fiver gets a vision that everyone in their warren is going to die. And they try to convince the leader of the warren that they have to leave, but he doesn’t believe in Fiver’s vision. So Hazel and Fiver just gather together whatever rabbits will come with them, and they take off. And you kind of start to see the strengths of all the different rabbits— or some of the different rabbits that go with them.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, pretty early on.
GIN JENNY: Fiver gets visions and can sometimes see the future. Hazel’s friendly and open minded and sensible. Ends up being the leader of the group. Blackberry is very clever and comes up with plans. Dandelion tells good stories.
WHISKEY JENNY: And he’s also really, really fast.
GIN JENNY: And Bigwig is the strong, brave rabbit who comes with them, and is the muscle.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: And it’s also just so great. I loved Bigwig, reading this time, maybe more than I ever have before.
WHISKEY JENNY: I— all right. OK, yeah.
GIN JENNY: No?
WHISKEY JENNY: No, he’s great. He’s always been great.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: To be clear, I never didn’t like Bigwig. Just, this time around I was really emotional about him.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK. OK, got it. Sorry.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, no, I never disliked him.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK.
GIN JENNY: God, that would be impossible. If I had ever disliked Bigwig, that would make me a monster. He’s so brave and good.
WHISKEY JENNY: He’s so beautiful and brave. I will say, one thing that surprised me this time is, those are like the main five for me.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Same.
WHISKEY JENNY: There are some more rabbits that come along with them from the very beginning that I was like, who are these jokers? [LAUGHTER] I have no idea who these bunnies are.
GIN JENNY: No, I remember them being there. Like Silver I remembered.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, Silver. I would put Silver in the top six, then. Like, he’s main six. Then there’s also Acorn and Speedwell, and I’m like, I don’t know who you are.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, you’re right. There’s a couple of other just nothing rabbits that happen to come with them, but who cares? [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: I think they just fill out the numbers.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, they do.
WHISKEY JENNY: I guess Buckthorn has some moments. The other two were really just sort of also there. Oh, and Hawkbit. Who the hell is Hawkbit?
GIN JENNY: Dunno. Just some rabbit.
WHISKEY JENNY: Some rabbit! [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: There could be more that we’re forgetting, because I really cannot keep track of all the rabbits.
WHISKEY JENNY: So there’s definitely a core six, though, who you get to know their character the most.
GIN JENNY: I mean, I’ll probably say this again as we’re going through the plot, but what I really love about this book is that you also get to see their skills developing as they go along. When we begin, Hazel is not the leader that he’s going to become. He’s just very like, what’s going to happen next? And I think Richard Adams does such a good job of developing each of them into like the super competent, smart, resourceful rabbits that they become.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, totally, totally. And you see Hazel at the beginning is so worried about how is this going to work? Is Bigwig going to want to be the Chief Rabbit? He doesn’t know who he can rely on.
GIN JENNY: Pipkin! We forgot Pipkin!
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, Pipkin! Oh! Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god. I can’t believe we forgot about Pipkin.
GIN JENNY: There’s also a small but lionhearted rabbit called Pipkin, who’s always so afraid, but he always does the thing anyway. He’s less strong than the other rabbits, but he really tries his best.
WHISKEY JENNY: He loves Hazel with all of his heart and just sticks close to Hazel at all times and is like, I’ll do whatever Hazel wants me to do. It’s so sweet!
GIN JENNY: I was reminded of this because one of the early keynotes of Hazel’s character is that he doesn’t want Fiver and Pipkin to be bullied because they’re smaller.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, and that’s how it worked in the old warren.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. It’s just nice, because even from the beginning, he has this small version of what he wants his warren to be, and then he kind of builds it outward as the book goes on.
WHISKEY JENNY: There’s a beautiful, beautiful moment that we’re going to get to that’s related to that that I love so much.
GIN JENNY: Oh, goodie.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes. OK, so let’s keep going.
GIN JENNY: OK, yeah. So they escape from Sandleford warren. They’re pursued a little bit, but they are able to get away. Blackberry has a brilliant idea that the rabbits who are not strong enough to swim the river, he puts them on a piece of wood and floats them down, which is so smart.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s ingenious! And I think the book does such a good job of making you realize how ingenious it is for this rabbit to have thought of this, having never seen a boat before.
GIN JENNY: Right.
WHISKEY JENNY: Like, to us it doesn’t seem that big of a deal, but that was a huge deal!
GIN JENNY: And the book makes it seem like the hugest deal imaginable, which is awesome.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, totally.
GIN JENNY: They run away. They just have started to feel safe, and they’re like, oh, we found this big warren. How nice. We’ll go to this warren and make friends with these rabbits, maybe.
WHISKEY JENNY: [WORRIED] Nooooooo.
GIN JENNY: And maybe even stay here. [LAUGHTER] This part of the book has haunted Whiskey Jenny’s dreams, it is obvious.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s so creepy, this warren! Everything is terrible and creepy about this warren. Don’t stay there! Every time, I’m like, no! Don’t do it! Don’t trust them!
GIN JENNY: The rabbits get there, and there’s a lot of small weirdnesses about the warren. The rabbits won’t answer questions.
WHISKEY JENNY: Particularly ones that begin with where.
GIN JENNY: Yes. They’re all very big and strong, but they’re not good fighters. The warren is half empty, which usually suggests that something has gone wrong, like there’s been a plague, but they deny that anything like that has happened. They sing weird songs, they don’t tell the normal rabbit stories. They do weird art. They’re just, in general, super weird. But Fiver hates it.
WHISKEY JENNY: And Hazel won’t listen to Fiver and Fiver hates it. And Hazel’s like, shut up, it’s fine. You’re ruining it for everyone. Just eat the delicious food and be quiet.
GIN JENNY: And Hazel and Bigwig go out to talk to Fiver and try and talk him into coming back. And Bigwig is like, I can’t deal with this anymore. I’m going back. And he starts going back, and he gets caught in a trap. Because the whole field around this warren is rigged with traps to catch rabbits.
WHISKEY JENNY: Covered in wires!
GIN JENNY: And the farmer puts out food for them, so they have all this free, easy food. But periodically, some of them just get caught in these traps and die.
WHISKEY JENNY: And they know about it! They’re all complicit!
GIN JENNY: And it is soooooo creepy.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s so creepy! So Fiver runs back to the creepy warren and is like, guys, guys, Bigwig’s in a wire! Everyone has to come help! And they turn their backs on him, and scratch at him. And it’s really terrible. But then the original rabbits get away and try and save a Bigwig from the wire.
GIN JENNY: Because they’re not monsters. They’re not dead to humanity like—
WHISKEY JENNY: Like the creepy warren is.
GIN JENNY: And something so moving happens, which is that they briefly think Bigwig’s dead, but he is not.
WHISKEY JENNY: He is not. And here is the moment that I was referring to. There’s going to be a lot of these moments. But the moment when he stands up after they thought that he was dead, the first thing that he says is in response to Fiver being like, oh no, they wouldn’t come help. They scratched me. And Bigwig pops up and is like, I’ll fight them! Where are they? Because they scratched Fiver! It’s so sweet!
GIN JENNY: It’s really sweet. And also, when Hazel thinks Bigwig is dead, he says—
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, yeah.
GIN JENNY: So they talk throughout the book about that rabbits have a thousand enemies. They always talk about them as being the Thousand. And Hazel, when he thinks Bigwig is dead, he says, “My heart has joined the Thousand, because my friend stopped running today.”
WHISKEY JENNY: Mmmmm. So sad!
GIN JENNY: I’m getting a little teary.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s so, so sad. It’s so beautiful, also. And I think one of the other things this book does really well is rabbit culture. Like, they call it the enemy the thousand, and they have these proverbs, and they have this storytelling history. And there’s a whole other rabbit language, that there’s little footnotes with translations in the book. I don’t know, to me it never has come off as gimmicky. It definitely felt like a separate rabbit world, which is great.
GIN JENNY: It’s just obvious that Richard Adams has done a lot of research into rabbits, as well, and then supplemented that with a really excellent imagination, which is awesome.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it never feels like a gimmick. It feels like there’s actually, like, that’s just the word that they have for that.
GIN JENNY: It’s lovely.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, so they get away from the very, very creepy, creepy rabbits.
GIN JENNY: And they make it to this high up, broad area called Watership Down, and it’s the perfect place for a new warren.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hooray, everything is great!
GIN JENNY: Everything’s great. They’re in this wonderful place. Rabbits can live and thrive there. Seems like everything’s good. But no sooner do they get there, than here come two survivors from Sandleford warren to tell them what happened to their old warren. And it is so frightening.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s very, very frightening.
GIN JENNY: It is unironically traumatic to read.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, absolutely.
GIN JENNY: Because what happens is that men came and gassed the warren. So these two rabbits are the only survivors, and most of them are killed by the gas. And they were all trying to get away, and trying to climb over each other, clawing at each other, trying to get away, and it was just like—
WHISKEY JENNY: They’re in these tunnels that the rabbits have built, so once the rabbit dies, it blocks the tunnel, and then everyone freaks out.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it was awful.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s really hard to read. It sounds terrible.
GIN JENNY: It is. I mean it really— it is. It’s really hard to read. But so they have these two survivors who have come to be with them.
WHISKEY JENNY: Captain Holly and Bluebell.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And Bluebell is kind of a joker, and Captain Holly was in charge of the rabbit army back at Sandleford. He’s a very useful rabbit to have around.
WHISKEY JENNY: The thing that I do love about when they arrive is, Bluebell keeps making all these jokes when they first get there. And Hazel’s like, dude, this is not the time for jokes. Be quiet. And Captain Holly’s like, don’t quiet him. We wouldn’t be alive without him— I’m tearing up. [LAUGHTER] [GASPING] He keeps Holly’s spirits up and it’s really sweet.
GIN JENNY: Poor Whiskey Jenny. This is a lot.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m laughing, but I’m also crying. [LAUGHTER] I really like Holly’s support for Bluebell, as well.
GIN JENNY: Me too. And it shows, again, how much they’ve been through together to make it to Watership Down. So they get through hearing that story, which is really rough. And then something genuinely lovely happens, which is that they meet a wonderful bird named Kehaar.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, god, the seagull.
GIN JENNY: The seagull. And he’s wounded, and they give him a comfortable place to recover. Because Hazel is a beautiful genius, the best Chief Rabbit in the whole world. And the other rabbits are like, what are you doing? Why are you—?
WHISKEY JENNY: We don’t hang out with other animals.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, and Hazel’s like, well, we can hang out with other animals if we want to, because we’re the bosses of us.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, and they’re not trying to hurt us, so we can be friends.
GIN JENNY: And he’s like, and if we make friends with this bird, he can maybe do scouting expeditions for us and tell us what’s around. And that’ll be really, really amazing. And my favorite thing is that Kehaar and Bigwig become best of friends.
WHISKEY JENNY: Best of friends.
GIN JENNY: There’s a part later on where Kehaar is talking about— and we’ll get into this, but— Kehaar is talking about finding lady rabbits to come live in the warren.
WHISKEY JENNY: He calls them mudders, and I really like that. Because his speech is rendered in sort of an accent in the book.
GIN JENNY: And he’s says there’ll be lots of little Peegveegs running around.
WHISKEY JENNY: Little Peegveegs! Which is so cute. So I always read Kehaar as a Russian accent in my head. Is that how you interpreted it?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, could be.
WHISKEY JENNY: It made it really great. Little Peegveegs.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, like a Boris and Natasha accent. Well, Kehaar tells them— this plan works. Kehaar does become their friend. And he tells them about a big warren not too, too far from them with tons of rabbits. And Hazel’s like, that’s wonderful. We’re all guy rabbits, so what we’ll do is, we’ll go to this big warren, see if there are any lady rabbits who want to come live at Watership Down. And that’ll be great, and everyone will be friends.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay!
GIN JENNY: It is not great.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s not great.
GIN JENNY: And they are not friends.
WHISKEY JENNY: But here’s a couple of things I want to say about this now, is the looming shadow of Efrafa— which is that other scary warren.
GIN JENNY: The new scary warren.
WHISKEY JENNY: It pops up way earlier in the book that I was expecting. I remembered the journey to Watership Down being, I don’t know, maybe three quarters of the book, and then at the end they have this big fight with Efrafa. But the stuff with Watership Down and Efrafa takes like three quarters of the book itself, right? Or maybe two thirds.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, two thirds. I think that’s about right.
WHISKEY JENNY: It just popped up way sooner than I was remembering. I think the previous creepy warren just—
GIN JENNY: Loomed large in your memory?
WHISKEY JENNY: It did, yeah. Not that Efrafa is not also creepy and terrifying in a different way. So before we talk about Efrafa, though, I think we should mention what Hazel does in the meantime. And then we’ll talk about Efrafa.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So Hazel thinks that Efrafa is going to be great. He doesn’t know yet that it’s awful. And so he sends a small group of rabbits to go make their overtures. And in the meantime, he doesn’t like being stuck at home—
WHISKEY JENNY: He wanted to go, but as Chief Rabbit, he couldn’t, because it wouldn’t look very leadery if he did his own errands, or something.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, that’s kind of what he says. So he doesn’t like being home alone. He wants to do something so when they get back, they’ll all be like, oh.
WHISKEY JENNY: He’s such a great Chief Rabbit. We love him.
GIN JENNY: And there’s a farm close to Watership Down with four rabbits in a hutch, two of which are does. Girl rabbits. And he decides to go down there and let them out of the hutch and bring them back to Watership Down. And Fiver’s like, this so stupid.
WHISKEY JENNY: You’re just doing it to show off. Stop.
GIN JENNY: And Hazel’s like, no I’m not. It’s not about that. It is about that, guys.
WHISKEY JENNY: Definitely about that. And that’s, I would say, Hazel’s big flaw.
GIN JENNY: It is, yeah. He cares a lot about being a good leader, which is mostly awesome, but sometimes it leads him into trouble. And it goes really badly. One of the rabbits gets recaptured. The other three are very nervous and— you know, they’re tame rabbits. So they’re not very good at being rabbits.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wild rabbits, yeah.
GIN JENNY: And most importantly, Hazel gets shot and wounded. And that stays with him. He can’t run as fast as he used to. He walks with a limp for the rest of the book. And for a while the rabbits think that he’s dead, which is horrible.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s really horrible. Fiver, of course, is the one who realizes that he’s not and gets a vision about where to go save him. I remembered something bad happened at that farm, but I couldn’t remember exactly what it was. But every time after that happens, I just want to be like, will you please start listening to Fiver now? He’s right every time! Will you just listen to him? And this time, Hazel’s like, ooh, sorry. I will never again not listen to you.
GIN JENNY: OK, but to be fair to Hazel, he sort of listens. Fiver doesn’t have a vision. He just has a different opinion about whether this is a good idea or not.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, no, he says he has a feeling. He sees Hazel all alone, but he can’t get to him through the mist, or something. But he doesn’t say, I have a vision of a specific bad thing. That’s true.
GIN JENNY: Hazel kind of tries to compromise. And he’s like, look, I won’t go all the way down. I’ll stay back. And it’s OK, but it doesn’t go super great, and it’s kind of a waste of everyone’s energy and anxiety. Except! Do you want to tell what happens next, Whiskey Jenny?
WHISKEY JENNY: So the expedition rabbits get back from their mission at Efrafa. And they’re all bruised and bloody and exhausted, and they’re like, oh my god, that was terrible. Give me a second and I’ll tell you what happened. Turns out, Efrafa is a super rigid—
JENNYS: Militarized—
WHISKEY JENNY: Overcrowded, horrible—
JENNYS: Totalitarian—
WHISKEY JENNY: —fascist warren. And everything’s terrible, and every rabbit is in this little group. You have to stay with your group your whole life, and you have special feeding hours based on your group. And there’s always military rabbit police around you when you’re feeding. And you have special pooping times and special pooping places.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, and there’s no freedom. You can never leave.
WHISKEY JENNY: The military police can mate with whoever they want, and they have to mate with them. And it’s awful.
GIN JENNY: It’s horrible. And it’s led by a very intense rabbit called General Woundwort.
WHISKEY JENNY: General Woundwort.
GIN JENNY: Who’s a mythically strong and dangerous and intelligent rabbit.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes. And he’s built this warren because he wants it to be as safe and secure as possible.
GIN JENNY: Undetectable.
WHISKEY JENNY: So he’s trying to hide it from men. He’s trying to save it from disease. And he’s always trying to hunt down foxes or stoats, or whoever’s trying to get them. So he’s trying to make the safest warren possible, but it’s very much a security bargain gone awry. As they often do.
GIN JENNY: It’s very clear, the Watership Down rabbits barely got away. And definitely Efrafa is not going to let any does leave if they can help it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Some does, in fact, from Efrafa, even before the Watership Down envoy got there, wanted to leave, and requested to leave, but were not allowed to leave.
GIN JENNY: Really intense. And they come back, and they’re like, OK, Hazel, so that plan is no good. What next? And Hazel’s like, no. We have no other plan. We need does or the warren’s going to die. We have to go back.
WHISKEY JENNY: And the people who went there— which is only, I think, three or four, maybe—
GIN JENNY: They refuse to go back.
WHISKEY JENNY: —are really against it. They’re like, Hazel, you don’t get how terrible and scary this place is. We can’t go back there. You have to come up with a new plan.
GIN JENNY: Hazel’s like, no.
WHISKEY JENNY: This is it. We gotta do it.
GIN JENNY: This is the plan. He’s like, Blackberry, you have to come up with— because Blackberry’s the smart bunny— you have to come up with a plan that’s going to let us—
WHISKEY JENNY: Here are three objectives. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: And they have to get there, and get away, and not be followed.
WHISKEY JENNY: Those are the three objectives.
GIN JENNY: Blackberry comes up with an amazing plan, and it all hinges on Bigwig.
WHISKEY JENNY: Bigwig has to go undercover.
GIN JENNY: So, so amazing. And he gets really fey as they’re approaching Efrafa, because he’s scared and he doesn’t want to be scared. He doesn’t like being scared.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, he’s Bigwig. He’s Peegveeg.
GIN JENNY: And he has to commit to this plan. It’s so— everything goes wrong, and Bigwig keeps having to adjust.
WHISKEY JENNY: He’s undercover in Efrafa all by himself. He’s the only one that they send in.
GIN JENNY: Completely on his own.
WHISKEY JENNY: And he’s trying to bring it down from the inside. And he’s all by himself, but he’s so brave!
GIN JENNY: And he has before him the example of— there’s a rabbit in Efrafa who tried to rebel. And they’ve messed his ears all up and imprisoned him. And they’re making every rabbit in Efrafa see what they’ve done to him.
WHISKEY JENNY: They bring him around to the different groups at their feeding time, and make him give this little speech about how you shouldn’t rebel. It’s really horrifying.
GIN JENNY: And once you’ve given the speech to every one of the groups, they’re going to kill him. So Bigwig really knows what kind of danger he’s in.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s really— my heart is pounding even just talking about it. That is one of the most high-anxiety sequences I remember reading as a child in a book.
JENNYS: It is a lot.
GIN JENNY: But they are able to escape. Kehaar helps them, which is amazing.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s so good. But still, even though they have this great plan, and Bigwig is finally leading this group of does away, because he’s gotten away from the sentries and stuff. And even then, things go wrong. And there’s a thunderstorm, though. And Bigwig says something like, may Frith strike you down! And then the lightning happens, and it’s just a pure stroke of luck, but it’s really exciting. That finally things may be turning on their side, and then the bird comes out of nowhere! It’s so exciting.
GIN JENNY: It’s amazing. And they escape on a boat. Hazel chews through a rope that’s holding a boat, and they’re able to float down the river.
WHISKEY JENNY: Because Blackberry figured out what boats are!
GIN JENNY: Yeah! So it’s amazing. And then, so they escape from Efrafa. They get home with all these does. They’ve got like ten does to come live with them. And everything’s awesome. Happy ending, right?
WHISKEY JENNY: Right?
GIN JENNY: No! Efrafa comes after them to Watership Down!
WHISKEY JENNY: And then they have this big showdown battle at the end.
GIN JENNY: Oh my gosh, it’s so much. But, Whiskey Jenny, what I love about this big showdown battle is that so much of it is just psychological. It’s not a question of if General Woundwort could win a war, because he definitely could. But he has to win this war, right now, or his leadership is going to falter.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s a great point. I think also, it’s so fascinating contrasting— because you get some chapters from General Woundwort’s perspective. And it’s so interesting contrasting him as a leader with Hazel as a leader. Because General Woundwort, he has to win this war or the rabbits won’t trust him anymore, even if they still live. He wants to get back to Efrafa, because he’s worried that there’s going to be rebellion. And he’s always— in the book it says, like any warlord, he’s always worried about being overthrown, because he’s a terrible leader.
GIN JENNY: Yeah and also, he wants to do everything himself. And that’s such a contrast to Hazel, who’s always aware of the strengths of his fellow rabbits and is always trying to position them all for success, and take their advice.
WHISKEY JENNY: And trust them.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s really a contrast.
WHISKEY JENNY: He is the one who, he leaves the big battle in Bigwig’s hands and is like, I’m going to do this other thing. You’re in charge of this thing. You’re Chief Rabbit while I’m gone. And has no qualms that his vision will be carried through, even though he’s not physically present, which General Woundwort cannot rely on.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So what happens— there’s this— oh gosh. I’m going to get emotional about this.
WHISKEY JENNY: Me too.
GIN JENNY: Because it’s emotional. So there’s this big showdown between Bigwig and General Woundwort. And basically there’s one passage that the rabbits from Efrafa can use to get to the rabbits from Watership Down, and Bigwig is standing in the way. He’s not going to leave. He’s going to fight General Woundwort to the death.
And they have this big fight. It’s really so intense. And at one point, Woundwort tries to talk Bigwig into betraying his warren. And he’s like, come with me, I’ll make you head of my army, because you’re a really good fighter and stuff. And Bigwig tells him in rabbit language to eat shit, which is amazing.
WHISKEY JENNY: He curses at him. Yeah, it’s so good. My actually favorite part of this battle is—
GIN JENNY: I know what you’re about to say.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, no, I have two parts. I just remembered. My second favorite part is General Woundwort loses.
GIN JENNY: He does! He loses!
WHISKEY JENNY: Wanders off, and then tries to get one of his subordinates to be like, I’m just going to take a real quick break. Could you just finish him off for me? [LAUGHTER] He totally tries to play it off. But it’s like, dude, everyone just saw you lose that fight.
GIN JENNY: And again, just to emphasize again, when we start the book, Bigwig’s a good fighter, but he’s not the best fighter in the world. So this has developed over the course of the book, with him becoming more resourceful, and having to face all these different enemies. And he’s just become stronger and smarter.
WHISKEY JENNY: And he was really hotheaded at the beginning of the book, I would say, and has tamed that streak.
OK, here’s my first favorite thing. And I wrote the whole sentence down. And he’s pretty wounded. He’s covered in blood.
JENNYS: He’s very wounded.
WHISKEY JENNY: When they ask him again, like, ugh, can’t you just leave? This is his response. “My Chief Rabbit told me to defend this run, and until he says otherwise, I shall stay here.” [WHIMPER]
GIN JENNY: It’s so good. I’m getting a little bit teary, too. It’s so— He’s so loyal and brave. He’s at the end of his rope, but he knows he’s the only thing standing between his warren and defeat. And he’s there to defend it.
And then after that, something also amazing happens, which is that Woundwort had never thought of the possibility that Bigwig wasn’t the Chief Rabbit.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, I know. I love that.
GIN JENNY: I love that. Because number one, that’s such a tribute to Bigwig, who’s just amazing. And number two, it also, I think, it’s such a tribute to Hazel, that he has these skills that General Woundwort is not even able to comprehend.
WHISKEY JENNY: And General Woundwort can’t imagine that the biggest, strongest rabbit isn’t the leader.
GIN JENNY: All he values is strength.
WHISKEY JENNY: He just can’t compute that. And so then everyone else is worried that, oh my god, there’s an even bigger, stronger rabbit somewhere in this warren. We’ve got to get the hell out of here.
GIN JENNY: And they’re also freaked out because the warren has been so well-defended, and Bigwig hasn’t given up, and they remember the bird fighting for them.
WHISKEY JENNY: They heard Fiver yell unnaturally early on and think there’s this other weird animal down there.
GIN JENNY: They’re getting really freaked out. And then Hazel puts his amazing plan into action, which is so good. Which is that he goes down to the farm.
WHISKEY JENNY: Where the hutch rabbits were.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And he chews through the rope that’s holding the dog at the farm. And then he gets Blackberry and Dandelion to run from the dog, bringing the dog towards the warren, so that the dog will come and scatter the Efrafan rabbits who are on the top.
And it’s so amazing. It’s such a great plan. It’s so brave. Dandelion and Blackberry just give it their all. And the rabbits of Efrafa to take this to mean that the Watership Down warren has dog allies, bird allies, who knows what else? And they’re scattered and defeated.
WHISKEY JENNY: They’re scattered and defeated and run away from General Woundwort. And he’s left there screaming, like, what are you doing? Stay here and fight!
GIN JENNY: Yeah, he’s like, dogs aren’t dangerous.
WHISKEY JENNY: And he kind of walks off into the forest alone, I think.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, you don’t really see what happens to him.
WHISKEY JENNY: I— God, yeah, I don’t even know what to say.
GIN JENNY: And there’s also concern that Bigwig might be dead.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s a big concern.
GIN JENNY: It’s your second Bigwig death fake out.
WHISKEY JENNY: And we’re very concerned at the end of this fight for Hazel and Bigwig. Because Bigwig’s very, very wounded. And Hazel got trapped at the farm where he was chewing through the rope to release the dog, by a cat.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, the cat got him.
WHISKEY JENNY: He’s wounded, and he’s got that original older leg wound.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, but the little girl at the farm finds him, and they drive him back up to Watership Down and let him free.
WHISKEY JENNY: And that’s when Bigwig gets up, too, is when Hazel’s like, I’m back. You can get up now. It’s OK, everything’s OK, they went away. And he’s like, all right. We did it. We saved the warren. He doesn’t move until Hazel tells him to. Oh, it’s so sweet.
GIN JENNY: And then there’s a little epilogue about—
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh my god.
GIN JENNY: They all have such a good life in the warren, and they have made friends with Efrafa now that General Woundwort is gone.
WHISKEY JENNY: And they’ve started a mixed warren with rabbits from both of them in the middle.
GIN JENNY: It’s such a great book. It’s an amazing book. And as I was reading this, I think partly the reason that I was so high on Bigwig this time— not that I ever was not high on Bigwig. I always love Bigwig. He’s amazing. But I was also picturing John Boyega doing his voice this time.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh yeah.
GIN JENNY: So that was super amazing.
WHISKEY JENNY: Gosh it’s so great. The other thing I love about the epilogue—
GIN JENNY: It’s so good.
WHISKEY JENNY: There’s a scene of all the tiny little baby rabbits, Bigwig trying to train them on how to fight a cat. And they’re like, what’s a cat? Bigwig, we love you, tell us a story! [LAUGHTER] And they’re clambering all over him and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
GIN JENNY: It’s really, really so sweet. Oh my gosh, it was amazing. Also, they’re always telling these stories about the mythologic trickster rabbit, El-ahrairah. And there’s a couple of parts where they compare Hazel to that rabbit. One of them says, you’re running our risks for us, just like El-ahrairah. And it’s just, oh gosh, it’s so lovely.
WHISKEY JENNY: I loved all those little folktales mixed in. Those are really fun. And Dandelion’s a really good storyteller, so he’s usually the one telling them. And he tells one at the very beginning, when they’re really exhausted and they haven’t found shelter, and so they’re all super freaked out and anxious. And Hazel asks him, like, you have to be the only non-anxious one and tell us a story to distract us. And I really liked that they all get to show their courage at some point, no matter what their skill is. Bigwig’s amazing and beautiful, but also the other ones get to contribute, and not just by fighting. It’s so great. Oh god, it’s so great.
And then at the very end, they come upon— I think it’s Fiver’s rabbit wife, retelling their story as if—
GIN JENNY: As if El-ahrairah was Hazel.
WHISKEY JENNY: As if it was a tale from the past of El-ahrairah. It’s so good.
GIN JENNY: It’s so good. I just like it so much. Gosh, if you haven’t read this book, I hope you didn’t listen to this whole podcast, because we told you everything that happened.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s just, it’s so good. And I know, even— like, we just went all through that. And I feel like still, when I tell people who haven’t read it, like you said, it’s the story of a psychic bunny. And you’re like, well, I don’t want to read that. And then you’re like, OK, well, it’s a story of a group of bunnies going on a quest. And they’re like, why am I reading about these rabbits?
And that’s why all of that happens. And they grow, and change, and form grudging respect, and show how you build a good family and a good society, and not a totalitarian one or a morally complicit one.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s a really lovely team-up story, which as you know, we really like over at Reading The End bookcast headquarters.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yup. HQ.
GIN JENNY: I’m so glad we did this. We’ve been talking about it for a while, and I’m just really— it was even better than I imagined.
WHISKEY JENNY: Same. Yeah. This was a lot of fun.
GIN JENNY: So for next time— it can’t be— it’ll be no Watership Down.
JENNYS: Nothing could be.
WHISKEY JENNY: So we just won’t compare them.
GIN JENNY: But I’m excited for this. So we’re going to be reading a book called Umami by Laia Jufresa, translated by Sophie Hughes. And it is about a 12-year-old who lives in Mexico City. She loves reading mystery novels, and her little sister died many years ago, and her mother left. I think it’s a coming of age story, and it also tells the story of her different neighbors and some of her back story. And I’ve heard that it’s just really beautiful and great. And I’ve been wanting to read it for a while, so I’m excited that we’re going to get to.
WHISKEY JENNY: Me, too. It has a beautiful cover, too.
GIN JENNY: It has such a great cover. I’ll put it in the show notes. It’s so pretty. All right, well, this has been the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys. You can visit the blog at readingtheend.com. You can follow us on Twitter at readingtheend. We are both on Goodreads as Whiskey Jenny and Gin Jenny. And you can email us, please do, at readingtheend@gmail.com. If you’re listening to us on iTunes, please leave us a review. It makes us super happy and helps other people find the podcast.
And until next time, a quote from one of my favorite comfort reads, Love Walked In, by Marisa de los Santos. “Magic can happen in a car. The warm, intimate magic, born of being in an enclosed particular place, and simultaneously being nowhere, passing through.”
[CLINK]THEME SONG: You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to, or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.