Okay. It doesn't touch the heart the way Watership Down does. ( )

This was worse than I remembered it, actually. Having recently re-read Watership Down, I was really struck by how lightweight and inconsequential the stories in this book seemed. Even most of the tales of El-ahrairah lacked the mythic quality that Adams was so adept at evoking in the original book. The one that bothered me in particular was the first story in the book, which tells of how El-ahrairah gained the sense of smell for his people. What really annoyed me about it was that none of the other animals in the book were described with their Lapine names or really looked at from the viewpoint of a rabbit. When El-ahrairah journeys to the land of the King of Yesterday, he meets many extinct animals -- nearly all of which are called by their human names, including the Oregon Bison. Talk about yanking the reader out of the story! I absolutely could not believe that a warren of rabbits would be sitting around listening to Dandelion tell a story that talked about Oregon Bison and jaguars. SO aggravating. I gave this three stars for the nostalgia factor, but it's really more of a two-star book. ( )

Not really a sequel per se, which may be what disappoints so many readers, but Watership Down was already such a complete book that I think we're probably better served by this less conventional follow-up. The first half of the book sees the rabbits partaking in their favorite pastime of story-telling- most of these stories, of course, star the trickster El-ahrairah; the latter half tells some of the further adventures of the warren during their first year on the Down. While lacking the focus and epic scope of the original, it packs much of the same charm and serves as a welcome chance to revisit a world to which I have a deep, possibly unhealthy attachment. ( )

The rabbits from the original book are laying around, telling the stories found in this book. ( )

Stories from the rabbits' world of Watership Down, with all the surviving characters of that enchanting book. This consists of nineteen stories, loosely connected. A worthy return to the world of a classic novel, deserving of a place on any bookshelf. ( )