Tiny Wonders Series Launch: The Country Bunny and the Easter Promise

A mother, a mission, and a pair of golden shoes

Photo by Leeloo The First from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-easter-bunny-painting-6487195/

Part of the Tiny Wonders series: short reflections on children’s books, faith, and everyday holiness.

Dear fellow wonderers,

Welcome to Tiny Wonders—a new weekly Substack series where we spend just a few minutes each Monday reflecting on the big beauty tucked inside small things: a child’s book, a whispered prayer, a quiet truth. Sometimes there might be bonus posts midweek, but you can count on one little wonder arriving at the start of each week.

We’re launching this series during the Easter season, a time when joy is still fresh and flowers are still blooming, but real life has come rushing back in. It’s exactly the right moment, I think, for a small reminder that wonder is still worth looking for.

A friend recommended this week’s book to me not long ago, and I fell in love with it almost instantly. First published in 1939, The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes is full of soft watercolor illustrations, a mother’s vocation, and Easter imagery that feels just right for the beginning of this liturgical season. It’s become one of my favorite stories to return to—and I think the perfect starting point for this series.

It’s also a nice lead-up to the release of my new book, Wondrous Reading: Encountering the Catholic Faith in Children’s Literature, coming out this summer from Cascade Books. Each Monday, I’ll share a glimpse of how children’s stories—even the ones we think are “just for fun”—can carry significant spiritual truths if we’re willing to see them. Sometimes we’ll look at picture books, sometimes middle-grade or young adult novels. But always, these stories will be paths for thinking through faith and literature with children—just as my book seeks to do.

We begin today with a story of bunnies and bravery.

In The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes, a humble mother bunny dreams of becoming one of the five Easter Bunnies. But when she speaks up, the other rabbits laugh at her. She’s a mother. She has children. Surely that disqualifies her from something so important! (How many of us have experienced that judgment in some form or another?!)

But as the story unfolds, we see the opposite becomes true. It’s a surprising tale for its time.

Because she has raised her children with care, because she’s taught them to work hard and look after each other, because she has learned to be wise and good: she is chosen. Not in spite of being a mother, but because of it.

As the old Grandfather Bunny says to her:

“You have chosen the hardest task of all, and that is why I have chosen you. For you have the speed of the north wind, the strength of the storms, and the gentleness of a mother.”

You can read the whole story here. It’s delightful!

The mother bunny is then given the most difficult Easter mission: to deliver an egg to a sick child at the top of a snowy mountain. She nearly collapses in exhaustion, but at the last moment, magic gold shoes appear and carry her the rest of the way.

I can’t help but think of the Resurrection. How love often calls us beyond what we think we’re capable of. How the path is hard, but help appears. How grace meets us and carries us when we’re too tired to go on.

And I think of Our Blessed Mother Mary, too. Who pondered and labored and said yes to a calling no one could fully understand. Who, like the Country Bunny, was entrusted with a holy mission others might not have expected her to fulfill. Who stayed close to Christ, even when the road led to the cross.

The virtues praised in this children’s book—gentleness, patience, humility—are Marian virtues as well. And the Country Bunny reminds us: vocation isn’t about being less. It’s about giving more to become more, and doing so out of self-giving love.

For mothers trying to balance it all, whether working outside the home, inside the home, or somewhere in between, this story offers a small word of grace. Maybe even reading a book with your child today is part of your holy work. Maybe that quiet moment is forming both your hearts in courage and care.

Or maybe, like me, you’re just a child at heart, and you read this story simply because it’s beautiful. That’s holy, too.

And maybe, when your strength starts to run out, a pair of gold shoes will meet you. Maybe God’s grace will find you, wherever you are, and remind you that your work as a mother has been preparing you in ways you had not realized for all the other unexpected tasks that this world brings to our lives.

See you next Monday for another tiny wonder. Until then: What story reminds you that love and vocation don’t cancel each other out but build each other up?

In hope and holy curiosity,
LuElla