Shy Willow
I have never identified with an illustrated rabbit as much as I did with Willow, of writer/illustrator Cat Min’s Shy Willow. Not Bugs Bunny or Peter Cottontail or Roger Rabbit could come close to comparing. The titular rabbit in Min’s beautifully drawn book, as you might have surmised, is quite shy. She lives alone in an abandoned mailbox, and she’s decorated the interior with pages torn from her much-used journals and sketchbooks.
Well, perhaps it’s fair to say that a younger version of myself would have identified with the quiet, bookish Willow. But, as often happens in these stories, operating according to rules set out in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, adventure calls, and the hero is at first reluctant, afraid to take that all-important first step. Like Luke Skywalker and Frodo Baggins before her, Willow is called to greatness.
Unaware that the mailbox in question is now a home to a hare, a little boy named Theo drops a letter in Willow’s home. Theo’s letter is a birthday request. He wants the moon to shine her brightest for his mother’s birthday — that night! Clearly, Theo didn’t take shipping time into account. Willow, on reading the letter, has a crisis of conscience. A trip to the moon is a substantial adventure for anyone, let alone a shy little rabbit. But she’s inspired by Theo’s letter, a selfless request to honor his mother, so she packs her journals in a bag and sets out.
Willow meets with hurdles on her trip to the moon — all illustrated in a breathtakingly colorful, whimsical style — but she doesn’t let any one mishap stop her. “Willow longed to run home,” Min writes. “But she shook the thought away when she remembered the little boy and his letter.”
I won’t give it away, but Shy Willow has a happy ending. The marvel of the book, though, is that empathy is its engine. Theo’s gift to his mother inspires Willow to be selfless and brave, illustrating the ripples our actions have. There’s no moralizing soliloquy, no big epiphany, just a rabbit learning that she’s more courageous and capable than she realized. That makes the story all the more powerful.