I really do cherish Watership Down. Mystery and mythology and suspense and horror and humour and drama and fantasy and even a touch of the military thriller...out of what would seem at first to be the least likely subject for any of the above! Adams has achieved something genuinely magical and unique.

I can't ever remember caring about any human character more than I do about his rabbits. I was so mesmerized by the little creatures' quest that it came as a complete shock to discover later (looking at a map on the web) that their whole 'epic' journey covers maybe five miles.

One thing that does bewilder me a little - seeing it marketed so heavily as a children's book. For thoughtful 10-13 year-olds, yes, possibly...but the bookseller in me keeps envisioning it being purchased as a 'cute little bunny' story and traumatizing some poor unwary toddler for life.

Good point about the marketing of this book...I wonder if the fact that the film version was animated (cartoons=children, you know) helps perpetuate the idea. By the way, I've never seen the entire film. I doubt it could ever come close to how I envisioned the characters and settings. It could be done well with today's digital effects and the growing market for longer length films, but I'll stick with the novel for now.
Have you read Tales from Watership Down (1996)?

Yup...and was half enchanted all over again, half sorely disappointed.

Enchanted by the mythology section - the stories sound for all the world as though they had been passed down to Adams through untold furry generations. (Although the bit where El-arairah enters the land filled with extinct animals, all of whom carefully give him their full scientific names, is a tad too Greenpeace-y for strict comfort.)

But the catch-up with the Watership warren is a bit of a letdown - a matter of a few personality conflicts, resolved with the aid of some very lazy storytelling. I almost groaned aloud when the problem of the upstart young buck was neatly solved, not via Hazel's justice or Bigwig's anger, but simply by having him fall into a cistern and be humiliated.

Watership Down is definitely an Adult print novel. The key to that, in the UK at least was the original Penguin print. The childrens imprint of Penguin books was Puffin.

One of my all time favourite books, and while the film was a bit disappointing, Art Garfunkels beautiful song, "Bright Eyes" is a perfect complement to either the film or the novel.

I tried to read other books by Adams - Shardik or The Plague Dogs but nothing beats Watership Down.