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Raising Hare

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Raising Hare

By: Chloe Dalton
Narrated by: Louise Brealey
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About this listen

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and snoozed in your house for hours on end. This happened to me.

When lockdown led busy professional Chloe to leave the city and return to the countryside of her childhood, she never expected to find herself custodian of a newly born hare. Yet when she finds the creature, endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm, she is compelled to give it a chance at survival.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together and the challenges of caring for the leveret and preparing for its return to the wild. We witness an extraordinary relationship between human and animal, rekindling our sense of awe towards nature and wildlife. This improbable bond of trust serves to remind us that the most remarkable experiences, inspiring the most hope, often arise when we least expect them.

©2024 Chloe Dalton (P)2024 Canongate Books Ltd Animals Biological Sciences Outdoors & Nature Science Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking

Critic reviews

'I savoured every carefully chosen and perfectly polished word and I cared so deeply about Hare that I found myself holding my breath . . . This is more than a wildlife memoir, it's a philosophical masterpiece ruminating on our place as human beings in nature' (CLARE BALDING)

'Raising Hare is an astounding achievement. Not since I read Salar the Salmon by Henry Williamson have I witnessed such insight into a creature of the wild. This is a great and important tale for our times, for all of us, in the same league as Ted Hughes, Alice Oswald, Thomas Hardy and indeed Henry Williamson himself. I am so pleased Chloe Dalton told us about raising hare. I will not forget it and nor will anyone who reads it' (MICHAEL MORPURGO)

'A beautiful book that makes you think profoundly about how we so often tune out the natural world around us. Chloe Dalton is a tender, curious, wise, mind-expanding guide, connecting readers with the wild we humans once knew so well. I will be recommending this to everyone' (MATT HAIG)
All stars
Most relevant
I am a person who tended to groan at the presence, at least in my part of the UK, at the ever present images, cards, and figurines of hares and more in gift shops, garden centres and the like. This book has banished my groans! I selected this title having seen that it had been short listed for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, and generally select one of the short-list as a kind of self-bet as to the winner. We wait and see. This has to be the most affecting, restrained, marvelling and intimate books that I have ever listened to it read. It is made all the more so by a wonderfully sympathetic, intelligent performer in Louise (Loo) Brealey. The chronicle of thoughts, firmly drawn descriptions, observations, reflections, self-knowing, views and wonders after a believed abandoned young leveret in need of care is by turns a joyous, heart-stopping, delightful, amusing, revealing and unashamedly honest. Few if any cannot listen to the audio-book and be captured spellbound, even those sections that deal with how ignorant man has viewed and treated hares across time and the world. The title of this review is taken from the excellent conversation between author and performer at the end of the audio-book. This audio-book deserves to be selected and taken to heart. It will change perceptions. Fully recommended.

Very Special: Memoire, Natural History, Manifesto

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A beautiful moving account of a relationship between a woman and a hair, how they accepted each other. It has resonance in these troubled times, how the natural world is so important and meaningful to us. Thank you for sharing your experience with me.

The natural world is so important and meaningful to us.

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I loved the respect and love running through this book, how if we look, nature is the best guide. How we find true rewards in slowing down and letting go. The research elements were enlightening and so needed. How the human grew alongside the Hare, giving in to her own true nature. A powerful meditation on letting go and allowing our truth to guide us.

A Powerful Meditation on letting go

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I immersed myself deeply into this very moving story which awakens so many layers of awareness - thank you Chloe for what will forever be one of my most favourites books

I felt like I was there with them - the writing is so detailed

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A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare.

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.

In February 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she brings it home, only to discover how impossible it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton’s house by day. Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, stoats, feral cats, raptors, and even people, she never tried to restrict it to the house. Each time the hare leaves, Chloe knows she may never see it again. Yet she also understands that to confine it would be its own kind of death.

My comments:

I don't usually read memwa's and biographical books however recently I have read a few in the last year or two and so am starting to read ones based on my interests. I really found this book interesting learning more about the habits and behaviours of Hares. I liked the way despite not knowing much about them she experemented and took care of it. I loved the friendship and trust Chloe built with the hare. This is a lovely story and shows how experiences can change our lives and outlook.

Really interesting and informative book.

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