Raising Hare - The Library of the Uncommons

304 pages

English language

Published 2025 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

ISBN:: 978-0-593-70184-3

A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare.

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.

In February 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she brings it …

A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare.

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.

In February 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she brings it home, only to discover how impossible it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton’s house by day. Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, stoats, feral cats, raptors, and even people, she never tried to restrict it to the house. Each time the hare leaves, Chloe knows she may never see it again. Yet she also understands that to confine it would be its own kind of death.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together, while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness first-hand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them.

3 editions

4thace reviewed Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton

A fascinating story of living with a wild creature

5 stars

I found this a soothing book for our time which can use a meditation on a largely forgotten little animal told in a lovely honest style. The author happened to come across an exposed newborn hare or "leveret" one day just before the Covid-19 pandemic put nations into lockdown, and chose to give it shelter in her house. Most people my age probably now about hares by association with the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, but I can remember seeing them racing around the grasslands of Northern California when I lived there, rangier than rabbits and non-burrowing. The species of hare in this book was once extremely common in England when the rural areas were less hemmed in by urbanization and industry, leaving a mark on the language. The animal is still maintaining itself without help from humankind.

As a professional speechwriter in the UK, the author certainly knows how …

I found this a soothing book for our time which can use a meditation on a largely forgotten little animal told in a lovely honest style. The author happened to come across an exposed newborn hare or "leveret" one day just before the Covid-19 pandemic put nations into lockdown, and chose to give it shelter in her house. Most people my age probably now about hares by association with the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, but I can remember seeing them racing around the grasslands of Northern California when I lived there, rangier than rabbits and non-burrowing. The species of hare in this book was once extremely common in England when the rural areas were less hemmed in by urbanization and industry, leaving a mark on the language. The animal is still maintaining itself without help from humankind.

As a professional speechwriter in the UK, the author certainly knows how to use words so they land with impact for a reader. She takes us through how she managed learned what she needed to do in order that the helpless leveret could survive into adulthood. Most of what she learned came from observation, though, since written accounts of captive hares and veterinary advice was scant. For its part, the leveret proved to be more adaptable than expected, coming up with a way to live in the human world and the open countryside on its own terms. In this book, the author never thought of the hare as a pet or domestic in any way but as a wild creature that decided to allow her to glimpse the principles by which it lived its life over three years. The author grew to appreciate the lessons it gave by example: stillness, love of habit, calm, and strength, among others.

It's been ten years since I read Helen Macdonald's book "H is for Hawk" but this book inevitably brought that one back to mind. I think they both stand up as testaments of what we can learn when we see animals for what they are.

Subjects

Zoology