In a debut filled with history and whimsy, Leona Francombe retells the Battle of Waterloo through the lore and bedtime stories of a modern-day family living on the battle site at Hougoumont Farm. This clan is set apart from most historians by one notable factor--they are rabbits.
Unlike most of his twitchy-nosed relatives in the Hougoumont hutch, William has white fur. Despite his different appearance, William never feels out of place among the other rabbits. Like them, he loves to hear stories from his wise grandmother, Old Lavender, matriarch of the warren, who acts as repository for the rabbits' knowledge of the great battle. She divides her time between silent contemplation, seeming to exist between the physical world and a spirit realm the others cannot join, and reminding her progeny of details from the long-ago battle. She tells the grander segments as rewards for good behavior, as entertainment and bedtime stories. The more frightening tidbits make for cautionary tales and even the occasional punishment. While her Waterloo retellings are for the entire hutch, William is her special protégé, and she encourages him to stretch his senses toward the echoes of the past and the ghosts of war. Despite her close relationship with her grandson, Old Lavender retains an air of mystery for William, and not only because of the cryptic nature of some of her teachings. Rumor has it that the grande dame once escaped Hougoumont for a time, and her long-ago adventure may hold the key to secrets about William himself.
While Francombe's choice of protagonist leads to comparisons with Richard Adams's Watership Down, she spends far less time dwelling on the inner lives of lagomorphs than she does bringing Wellington and Napoleon to life. In her imagining of domestic animal culture, "Those who stayed and survived passed the experience on through collective memory, right down through the generations until the present day." Detailing troop movements or a ball that ends in panicked evacuation, Francombe uses Old Lavender as a mouthpiece to raise the specters of the bloody Hougoumont skirmish that preceded Waterloo proper. According to the venerable rabbit, "Nature never truly recovers from human cataclysms." Although the narrative occasionally veers into territory as charming as that of a children's story, such as William's friendship with a magpie, Francombe never loses the thread of examining the profound impact of Waterloo. She also does not miss the opportunity to point out how blithely humans sip coffee on the ground where thousands once died in bloody combat. Part historical chronicle, part adventure story, Francombe's unconventional debut hops along in crowd-pleasing fashion. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads
Shelf Talker: Francombe's debut features the Battle of Waterloo as narrated by a rabbit living on the farm where the deciding conflict occurred.