A "Feminist and Anti-Racist" Easter Classic for Children

by KM Rockwood

 

Did anyone read the book The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes to you when you were a child?

Did you read it to the children in your family?

The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes is a 1939 children's picture book written by DuBose Heyward and illustrated by Marjorie Flack.

The book, which has never been out of print, has come to be regarded as a feminist and anti-racist statement.

The story was reportedly based on a tale Heyward’s mother told to him when he was a child. He, in turn, told it to his own children before he turned it into a picture book.

It seems that the Easter Bunny is really a group of five bunnies who deliver Easter goodies to children.

A little country girl bunny with brown skin and a cotton-tail, says, “Some day, I shall grow up to be an Easter bunny.”

All of the sophisticated big white rabbits laugh at her, as do the athletic jackrabbits.

The country bunny grew up and got married, although a husband bunny is never mentioned again. She is surprised when, one day, she has 21 baby cottontails to take care of. (Maybe someone should have told her where babies come from?)

The white rabbits laugh at her again, as do the jackrabbits. They tell her to go home and take care of her babies and leave the delivery of Easter eggs to big men bunnies like them.

She does, temporarily giving up her dream. By and by, her babies turn into boy and girl rabbits.

Showing the underrated executive functioning skills that most parents, by necessity, demonstrate, she organizes her children and teaches them to handle all the household functions.

The story is a product of its time, and the assigned tasks do show some gender bias. The two who are to sew and mend are girl bunnies, and the heavy work of gardening falls to boy bunnies. However, both boys and girls are taught to clean, cook, and entertain.

Perhaps most puzzling is the last little boy bunny, whose sole task seems to be to pull out the mother’s chair as she sits down to dinner. The book is silent on whether he regrets his lack of meaningful contribution to the family welfare, or whether the other bunnies might be jealous of his single easy chore.

When one of the five Easter Bunnies is retiring, the country bunny takes her children to the Palace of Easter Eggs to see the tryouts for the position.

As expected, the white rabbits with their beautiful fur and the jackrabbits with their outstanding professional athletic talents are the prominent contestants.

Old, wise, kind Grandfather Rabbit, who himself is a white rabbit, tells them he is seeking a rabbit who is wise and kind as well as strong and fast. He sees the country bunny, surrounded by her well-behaved family, and asks her whether the care of her children take up all her time. She tells him that she has organized their lives so that the household can run with minimal input from her.

The rest, of course, is history. Grandfather Rabbit selects her to be the next Easter Bunny. We hear of the trials and tribulations she encounters, and the little gold shoes Grandfather Rabbit gives her. She excels in her new role.

The story ends with the country bunny bringing Easter treats for her children to her own home, where all the chores are done and the bunnies safely asleep in their beds.

This book, extraordinary for its time—it even predates World War II, with the entrance of so many women into positions formerly regarded as strictly male—was written by Edwin Dubose Heyward, who is best known as the author of the novel Porgy, which was later expanded into the 1935 Gershwin classic, Porgy and Bess. 

While once again that production reflects the reality of its time, it was another extraordinary work whose value was recognized by the African-American poet and playwright Langston Hughes, who said Heyward was one who saw "with his white eyes, wonderful, poetic qualities in the inhabitants of Catfish Row that makes them come alive.”

Link to a pdf of The Country Bunny and the Golden Shoes:

https://www.capgeox.org/uploads/1/3/1/9/131934518/country_bunny_keynote_pdf.pdf

Sources: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Country_Bunny_and_the_Little_Gold_Shoes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubose­­_Heyward

 Killens, John O., ed. (1960). "Writers: Black and White". The American Negro Writer and His Roots: Selected Papers from the First Conference of Negro Writers, March, 1959. New York: American Society of African Culture.