I came across Du Bose Heyward's "The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes" (1939) while thrifting in Utah over Christmas. I'm used to finding vintage books with beautiful illustrations, but this one was especially delightful because of its unexpectedly feminist message.
The story follows the life of a little country bunny with the big ambition of someday being an Easter Bunny-- in this story there are five Easter Bunnies, and "they must be the five kindest, and swiftest, and wisest bunnies in the whole wide world" (and they are all also dudes). Although the Country Bunny puts her dream on the back burner as she grows up and raises a family, she eventually gets her chance to show that pesky patriarchal cunicular society what she's made of.
One day a little country girl bunny with a brown skin and a little cotton-ball of a tail said, "Some day I shall grow up to be the Easter Bunny: you wait and see!" Then all of the big white bunnies who lived in fine houses, and the Jack Rabbits with long legs who can run fast, laughed at the little Cottontail and told her to go back to the country and eat a carrot. But she said, "Wait and see!"
See more about this book at Vintage Kid's Books My Kid Loves
