Celebrate the Author: Beatrix Potter
I didn’t remember that I had chosen Beatrix Potter as my July author for the Celebrate the Author Challenge when I checked out three of her books for my daughters last weekend. I wouldn’t say I’ve ever been an absolute fanatic about her stories either. But as I’ve been reading them to my daughters over the last year, as well as enjoying the videos available at the public library, it’s finally happened: I’ve succombed to their charm.
What is the appeal of these stories? I can only answer for myself, and these are the things that come to mind:
1.) The books as physical objects are very appealing. They’re small, but not too small (unlike the squintworthy Mary Engelbreit books someone gave my daughters). They have their own special place in the library, and they’re down where little hands can handle them — which, judging from how worn they always are, has surely happened. The text-to-picture ratio keeps them from being intimidating to early readers. And there’s just something balanced and right about the way the words and pictures are always centered on their respective pages; each time you turn the page, you feel like you’re viewing a work of art that’s complete and stands on its own.
2.) Though these characters have been commercialized in clothing and baby items, etc., these stories in themselves are really not sentimental. They may be nostalgic to us now, but they don’t sentimentalize their cuddly protagonists. Who can read Squirrel Nutkin without shivering at his audacity around the ominous owl Old Brown? He’s clutching two mice in his claws and, as my daughter points out, he has a mouse tail hanging from his beak! Who doesn’t feel nervous when Tom Kitten is rolled into a pudding by two civilized rats? Who really expects Peter to get away from Mr. MacGregor? These stories tell the truth about the dangers and brutalities of the natural world. They manage, somehow, to walk the line between anthropomorphizing their characters — bunnies dressed in coats and clogs, squirrels that go fishing, rats that make pies — and maintaining the kind of integrity that comes from a writer’s keen observation of real animals in a real world.
3.) The pictures are wonderful. That’s all I have to say about that.
4.) The language and allusions are quite civilized, and actually quite challenging for young children. The first few pages of Benjamin Bunny, for instance, reference a pony gig carrying Mrs. MacGregor off for a day of marketing in her best bonnet, and the muffetees Mrs. Rabbit makes to earn a living. (I’m still not sure what that is, but I’m guessing a muff.) The riddles Nutkin tells Old Brown are “as old as the hills,” according to the narrator, but my daughter puzzled for quite awhile over them. Jemima Puddleduck isn’t a “good sitter,” but she certainly reminds us where eggs really come from. Even the commonplaces of gardening aren’t necessarily common knowledge to children today. And it cracks me up when I hear my daughters echo phrases from these stories around the house… calling their stuffed animals “excessively impertinent,” or dressing them in a “tam ‘o shanter.” I guess besides their nostalgia-quotient, I see these things as having a value in teaching problem-solving; we have to look up words sometimes, or puzzle things out from context, and it makes us more aware of the contrast between our lives and the less modern world of the stories.
5.) Last but not least, I decided to let my daughters weigh in on Beatrix Potter. When I asked them what they liked best about these stories, my 7-year-old said she liked the riddles best. My 4-year-old said, “I like that Squirrel Nutkin gets away from Old Brown! And I like that Benjamin Bunny gets away from the cat. And Peter gets away from Mr. MacGregor.” True enough; our heroes always get away, at least all the ones I’m ticking off in my mind right now. They usually suffer consequences; Peter gets stuck drinking camomile tea, Benjamin Bunny and Tom Kitten get spanked, Nutkin loses half his tail… but they get away. They rise to the occasion.
It’s noteworthy that these girls at their different stages both find something engaging in these stories. I have to say that though it’s taken awhile, I do too. Happy birthday, Beatrix Potter!
Pictures are from Project Gutenberg.
