Raising Hare (Children’s Edition) by Chloe Dalton

Title: Raising Hare (Children’s Edition)

Author: Chloe Dalton

Genre: Non-fiction

Publisher: Canongate

Published: 3rd November 2026

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 208

Price: $29.99

Synopsis: A beautifully illustrated children’s edition of the Sunday Times bestseller and Wainwright Prize-winning sensation, this is the wondrous true story of a woman and a baby hare who form an incredible bond.

One winter’s day, Chloe Dalton went for a countryside walk and discovered a newborn baby hare – no bigger than her hand – chased by a dog and separated from its mother.

Worried for its safety, Chloe took the tiny hare home and learned how to feed and care for it . . . and an extraordinary friendship began.

This is the fascinating true tale of how Chloe and the hare, with its drumming paws and distinctive charm, lived alongside each other until the time came for it to return to the wild.

But when the hare is finally ready to jump over the garden wall, will Chloe ever see it again?

Featuring an afterword by Michael Morpurgo and beautiful illustrations throughout by Denise Nestor.

~*~

When Chloe Dalton found a newborn baby hare during a walk in the country, she rescued it. She took it home and looked after it, trying to maintain its wild side, and ensure it didn’t become too reliant on her. Doing so created a friendship that carried on for years, and a connection that shaped how Chloe lived her life with the hare, beyond its return to the wild.

This is the children’s edition of Chloe’s 2025 memoir of the same name. It follows her journey with the hare from leveret to motherhood, and watching the hare bring her babies close to the place she feels safe.

This is a gorgeous book about the connection between humans and animals, and the wilderness. Chloe navigates life with the hare in the house and once it returns to the wild, coming and going, having her own babies. It’s filled with lots of ups and downs, as there are in life, and the realities are not shied away from.

Chloe’s worry about the hare runs throughout the book, and shows how connected she was to the hare, even though it was wild. It’s also a celebration of being wild. Of letting animals be who they are and what it means to be able to be part of the life of a wild animal’s life, even if it is from a distance. It’s a touching book in the vein of books like Born Free, and celebrates the life cycle and how we respond to it and the things we see and experience.

Books like this are gentle and hopeful, yet also teach us something about how the world works, and that we can’t control everything. That sometimes we have to let nature run its course, to allow things to happen without human intervention. They show the wonder of nature, and what it means to preserve and conserve it whilst maintaining our curiosity.

What I enjoyed about this book was the balance it struck and the way it told the story. As I haven’t read the adult version, I know there are probably lots of things that were missing but the general story was there. It gave a very good idea of what would be there, and was delightfully told, with great emotion and some great rabbit and hare facts at the end of the book to help children learn more about these animals.

I think children will love this gentle and hopeful story, where they can connect with nature and understand how the world around them works. They will also learn something knew, like that a baby hare is called a leveret and how to tell the difference between a hare and a rabbit.

It such a lovely book and one that I hope young readers enjoy.