Two years ago, I wrote Are There Any Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories About Easter?
This is a follow-up to that post that has been slowly compiled over time.
Just like in 2018, I was interested in non-religious Easter stories that fit somewhere into the speculative fiction spectrum.
There were no other criteria. I was totally open to short stories, novellas, or novels. Something written in 1800 would have been just as welcomed as something that was published last week.
So it came as a surprise to me to see what a short list I came up with. The vast majority of the titles on this list are children’s picture books. This was after I trimmed out all of the storybooks about Cartoon Character X’s first Easter. I’m sure they’re adorable stories, but I didn’t want them to crowd out everything else I found.
Children’s Picture Books
These were the picture books that appealed most to me. My parents read The Runaway Bunny to us when my siblings and I were growing up, and it was lovely.
The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown by Charles M. Schulz
The Story of the Easter Bunny by Katherine Tegen
The Easter Rabbit’s Parade by Lois Lenski
The Easter Bunny That Ate My Sister by Dean Marney
Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
After coming up with these titles, I had some success with speculative fiction that was written for an adult audience. In order to add this section, I needed to loosen up my “no religion” criteria a tad. Both of their blurbs do make references to non-secular celebrations of this holiday, but they don’t appear to be written in a proselytizing manner from what I can tell.
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley
The Circle of Six: Emily’s Quest by Dan Sanders
What Would You Add?
What books can you add to this list? I’d love to write a follow-up post if or when the speculative fiction community realizes how much fodder there is in Easter for all sorts of different tales.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll even write one myself!