# What is Watership Down?



## Hyatt101 (Feb 6, 2013)

I've heard Watership Down mentioned several times on this forum, and was just wondering what it was


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## Ape337 (Feb 6, 2013)

A super awesome book involving rabbits. Worth the read! There's a cartoon/movie version too which is comical (but I like it). :coolness:


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## Hyatt101 (Feb 6, 2013)

Thanks! Can you get it on kindle?


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## agnesthelion (Feb 6, 2013)

Wha..........what is Watership Down?!?!?!? Only one of THE best books ever written 

No really it was written by Richard Adams back in the 70s and has been a best selling novel all over the world. Some consider it required reading (me included!)

I've read it a few times. I reread it every couple years. It's such a fantastic book. It's hard to even explain. You don't even need to be a rabbit lover to enjoy it, it's a book about good and evil, fighting for what you want, friendship, adventure. Pretty much the basics to what a great story needs wrapped into a fantastic world of rabbits. 

It's obvious I'm a big obsessed. I know you are a kid so I don't know what your reading interests are.....but read it someday. 

Oh and the cartoon movie is HORRIBLE. Don't even watch it because it will give you a bad impression.


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## Hyatt101 (Feb 6, 2013)

The book looked good; I'm into nice long books, and of course, animals make every book 10 times better! Looks like a book I'd read!


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## kmaben (Feb 6, 2013)

Again I feel like I'm on the other side of the fence and poking a stick through it. I'm like the only person here who doesn't like watership down. I read the book first when I was younger then saw the movie and it gave me nightmares! So I figured I would try it again as an adult. Still an awful book and movie!


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## Korr_and_Sophie (Feb 6, 2013)

I didn't much care for the book or the movie either. I read the book for the first time last year and watch the movie right after. The movie was just odd from the animation style to the imagery.


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## LakeCondo (Feb 7, 2013)

I think I liked the book better before I even thought about having a pet rabbit.


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## missyscove (Feb 7, 2013)

I really enjoyed Watership down when I read it (in junior high, I think?). I remember thinking that he described the behavior of the rabbits really realistically (except for all the anthropomorphism, of course). I always intended to read Tales from Watership Down but haven't gotten around to it yet. I also read Plague Dogs which was also good, but a harder read and its criticisms of research animals were much more valid at the time than they are today, so keep that in mind.


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## MikeScone (Feb 7, 2013)

missyscove said:


> I remember thinking that he described the behavior of the rabbits really realistically (except for all the anthropomorphism, of course). I always intended to read Tales from Watership Down but haven't gotten around to it yet.



_Watership Down_ is about the journey of a group of rabbits from Sandleford Warren, which is destroyed to make room for a housing estate, to safety at Watership Down and how they established their warren there. It's fictionalized for the purposes of plot of course - Adams even invented a language and a very compelling origin story and mythology for the rabbits - but the underlying motives and actions are believable and realistic.

The realism is based on actual research - Richard Adams gives credit to the book _The Private Life of the Rabbit_ by R.M. Lockley, which is a very interesting nonfiction book on the behaviour of wild rabbits. Lockley based the book on years of observation of rabbit warrens in England and Wales. 

It's not just the rabbits' behavior which is realistic. The setting is not just realistic, but entirely real. Adams placed the migration of the rabbits in an area he knew well, in the counties of Berkshire and Hampshire in England. There was an article about _Watership Down_ a few years ago in _British Heritage_ magazine in which they traced the route of the band from Sandleford to Watership Down, and everything was there exactly as Adams had described. What is interesting is how small an area it really is - a bit over five miles from Sandleford to Watership - but from the point of view of a small rabbit, that's an epic journey. 

There's a website called "The Real Watership Down" at http://www.lionking.org/~watership/ which has pictures and a map of the area. 

_Tales of Watership Down _wasn't bad, but it's basically a collection of short stories, half of them being about the rabbits of the warren after the events of the first book, and the other half being mythological tales told by the rabbits expanding on the exploits of El-ahrairah, the First Rabbit.


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## agnesthelion (Feb 7, 2013)

kmaben said:


> Again I feel like I'm on the other side of the fence and poking a stick through it. I'm like the only person here who doesn't like watership down. I read the book first when I was younger then saw the movie and it gave me nightmares! So I figured I would try it again as an adult. Still an awful book and movie!



Oh the cartoon movie is horrendous! And creepy! Not even worth anyone's time at all 
As far as not liking Watership Down, we all have our books like that. I'm like that with 100 Years of Solitude. Ever read it? Supposedly it's world renowned, best book ever kinda thing. I've tried 3 TIMES to read it and I can't even get through it! It makes me feel like a complete failure because I'm a "reader" ya know? Lol.


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## Nancy McClelland (Feb 7, 2013)

Read it in college for a "Children's Lit class" and thoroughly enjoyed it, several times now. The cartoon/movie not as much.


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## Katielovesleo3 (Feb 7, 2013)

I plan on buying it and reading it ASAP, but my problem is I always read several books at the same time, first there's The Black Hope Horror which is awesome because its a story about a real haunting in the neighborhood next to me, but I can only read this one aloud and when I'm going down the road with Leo (they built section eight of Newport on a slave cemetary...smooth move huh? And Leo stayed at the house (also on top of graves) next to the "one" and he told me all kinds of horrible things) and then a book on agility, and then "Don't Shoot the Dog" by Karen Pryor. I need to finish my books!!!!


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## Ape337 (Feb 8, 2013)

Hyatt101 said:


> Thanks! Can you get it on kindle?



I have it as an e-book on my iPad so you might be able to get it on Kindle too. As you see there are differing opinions on whether people like the book or the movie, both, or none.

I'd say have a read and decide for yourself. My brother and I like the cartoon/movie, but we tend to like strange stuff. We think it's a riot. It all depends on what you like. For example. I can't stand Great Expectations. I dislike the book and the movie. It's a classic book. I wouldn't recommend to anyone that it's awful because that's up to them to decide for themselves. Have fun!


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## ani-lover (Feb 15, 2013)

My bunny was named after watership down!! :spintongue
but i renamed her <3


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## cassnessxox (Feb 16, 2013)

The movie gave me nightmares when I was a little kid! Then my boyfriend got the movie out for me recently and I didn't want to watch it again! I couldn't really remember why I was so horrified as a kid so I watched it again and tears were streaming down my face a few times during the movie. Bright eyes? I was sobbing...
But after that I quite liked it, it's just graphic for a cartoon and after the initial shock you can appreciate the story.


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