Looking for Easter

Review By JESSICA ALMY

I’ve been on a quest for vegan-friendly Easter books for two years now, but the pickin’s are awfully, awfully slim. It’s a surprise too, since Easter is about new life, so you’d think there would be a huge number of life-affirming children’s books. Not so.

Happily, Dori Chaconas and Margie Moore’s Looking for Easter is an oasis in this barren literary desert. Their delightful story involves a hunt — but what Bunny seeks is not dyed eggs nor milk chocolates, but rather Easter itself. Just when he think he’s found it, having filled a woven basket with soft grass and berries, he’s faced with a dilemma. His friend Robin’s nest has blown away and she needs a place for her eggs. Reluctantly, he gives her his treasure, thinking he’s lost Easter forever.

Of course, Easter is not lost, and after a long rain storm, Bunny emerges from his burrow to discover new life, in the form of baby mice, beavers, woodchucks, and of course robins. Wren aptly sums up what Bunny has learned: “‘Easter is new life . . . . Easter is all around us today!'”

Vegetarian and vegan families will appreciate that this book is about generosity, care for others, and reverence for life, rather than the (not always so vegan) trappings of the holiday. Christians will find that this book does not directly speak to the religious significance of Easter, but can provide an opportunity to discuss how the new life that Jesus brought to the world is reflected all around in God’s creation.

This book is a great find for vegetarian and vegan children who celebrate Easter.

Ages 3-7.

p.s. – For ideas on making your Easter celebration very, very vegan, check out the chocolate bunny roundup at Go Dairy Free, PETA’s column on making homemade vegan Easter eggs, and the delicious recipe selection at VegWeb.com. And until then, Lenten observers might find something to like in the Center for Action and Compassion’s Falling In Love With Creation meditations, or Lent 4.5 from the Passionist Earth and Spirit Center.