http://www.slate.com/blogs/nightlight/2 ... mob_tw_top
A taster:
Adams’ intentions aside, it is certain that many, many children too young for Watership Down found their way to it, via either well-meaning relatives who scooped a bucolic-looking copy from a bookstore without investigating further, or from children’s libraries, where it often occupies a position of honor. I certainly did: The horror of the Sandleford warren’s demise (rabbits gassed to death in their stopped-up holes, tearing each other to shreds while scrabbling for air) gave me a mild claustrophobia that makes the ordinary drudgery of deplaning an unpleasant experience to this day. Many great books embraced by a younger audience generation after generation contain passages darker than parents would prefer: the leper tossing his rotted finger casually into the fire in Henri Charrière’s Papillon; the sisters starved to death in their own rooms in Mervyn Peake’s glorious Gormenghast. My own parents’ resolve to leave their bookshelves completely open for our edification was shaken by the questions I asked after reading The Color Purple at 11. Watership Down is no exception. The characters are drawn from life, in particular from the officers and resistance fighters Adams had known during the Second World War, and their preoccupations are adult ones: tyranny and rebellion, survival and reproduction.
