Lulu and the Rabbit Next Door

Hilary McKay's Lulu and the Rabbit Next Door is a story for 7 year olds about a girl who can't leave a sad animal alone.

What happens

Lulu's street is full of tiny houses with brightly painted doors. Some people call it friendly. Some people call it nosy. Lulu is both, and so is Mellie, her cousin down the road.

So when a new family moves in next door, the two of them hang out of Lulu's bedroom window with a pirate telescope and watch.

They spot a rabbit hutch. Then they spot the boy.

His name is Arthur, he's seven like them, and he didn't want a rabbit at all. His granddad gave him one instead of the game he had asked for.

Arthur isn't cruel. That's the clever bit. He feeds George twice a day and cleans him out every Saturday and he will tell you so, and it's all true.

But George sits. Day after day. Week after week.

Once a week Arthur lifts him onto the grass for the few minutes it takes to change his sawdust, and George turns into a completely different rabbit. He hops. He stretches. He runs in racing circles round the garden and leaps in the air.

Then back in the hutch he goes.

Lulu and Mellie decide something has to be done. Mellie's plan is to shut Arthur in the shed and feed him very plain sandwiches so he knows how it feels. Lulu points out that there isn't a toilet in the shed.

What's lovely about reading it is how much of it is just two seven year olds being seven together. They argue for days about whose idea is ten million times better. They guess Arthur's age twice and get it wrong both times. And Lulu corrects him every single time he calls George "it". Him, not it.

There's a stretch in the middle that stings. Arthur never says a proper thank you, and Lulu ends up standing in the garden holding a box of fudge and trying very hard not to cry. If your reader takes unfairness personally, they will feel that one. It passes, and what comes next involves letters over the fence.

One practical thing. This is the American edition, so your reader gets vacation, Mom and colored rather than the British spellings. Most seven year olds skate over it.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, Lulu and the Cat in the Bag is in the library. That one opens with an enormous bag left on the doorstep, warm and lumpy and snoring, and a grandmother who very much didn't expect a cat.