Kate DiCamillo’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, published in 2006, is a novel about the life of Edward Tulane, a three-foot tall china rabbit. While the book functions like a fairy tale, having magical content and a clear moral, both young and adult audiences can relate to the themes of love and loss that Edward endures. Although the chapters are short, and the language is geared towards children, the themes serve as a larger metaphor for adults as well.

The story begins by introducing Edward Tulane, a china rabbit made for a wealthy little girl named Abilene. A third-person omniscient narrator tells Edward’s story and makes it clear that Edward is a sentient, conscious being on the inside, but on the outside, he appears like a normal toy rabbit. He has jointed arms and legs, but he can’t move on his own nor speak. In this way, life happens to Edward, but he has no control over his own. The narrative begins in the 1930s.

The novel follows a linear timeline, starting with Edward’s life with his first owner, Abilene. Although it’s never explicitly stated how Edward received consciousness, it’s implied that Abilene’s grandmother, Pellegrina, had something to do with it. Pellegrina had Edward made for Abilene, and while most people treat Edward like a toy, Pellegrina speaks directly to Edward; she tells him that she’s disappointed in him for being so selfish and not loving Abilene. This warning sets off a cataclysm of events for Edward. He is soon separated from Abilene, and the novel chronicles Edward’s life with the various people who save him.

While on one hand the novel is about Edward Tulane, on the other, it’s really about the people who take him in after he’s separated from Abilene. Each person that rescues Edward is really in need of being rescued themselves, and each person finds hope and comfort in Edward’s presence. As Edward lives with new people and hears their often tragic stories, he begins to not only understand love, but he begins to feel it as well. However, he begins to realize that inherent to love is the feeling of loss, and he soon begins to understand despair. Once he’s at one of his lowest points, he’s visited by Pellegrina. She doesn’t speak, but it’s clear that her presence is an omen of some sort. By the end of the novel, Edward desires to love again despite all his loss, and he ends up being reunited with Abilene through her daughter, Maggie.

Central to Edward’s journey is a bedtime story that Pellegrina tells him and Abilene one night. The story is about a princess who never feels love, and it ends with the princess being turned into a warthog, killed, and eaten. Abilene says that the story is pointless because it doesn’t have a happy ending, and Pellegrina implies that so too is life pointless without love. Throughout Edward’s journey, he realizes that Pellegrina’s story was about him, and the novel becomes about his personal revelation of how love gives life purpose.