I don't know if I've even read any of the books in their entirety before. Mom says that I didn't like them but concedes that she was the one who didn't like them and most likely never bothered reading them to me.
Part 1: The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
It probably does the book a disservice by reading it at 4:30 in the morning after only three hours of sleep to a five month old whom you desperately want to go back to sleep but has the Let's Play look in his eyes after you've spent ten minutes changing his diaper because you're half asleep and somehow the diaper keeps getting put on backwards no matter how you turn it around. As such, the book felt quite long.
This is a vague memory I have of Beatrix Potter's books and I'm interested to see how this stacks up to reality.
What I liked the most about this book was how Peter Rabbit's arc is from anthropomorphized young boy/ rabbit to, literally, a real rabbit. As he loses his shoes, he goes from biped to quadruped and once he has lost his coat, he is no longer a little boy looking for adventure but a nervous rabbit facing the very real and deadly dangers of the world (As exemplified by Peter's father being caught, killed and baked into a pie earlier in the story).
So I suppose then, The Tale of Peter Rabbit is about the loss of innocence. While his siblings are good kids and do as their told, they keep their clothes and humanity while Peter ends up sick, scared and a grown up rabbit scared of the world, aware of its dangers and to possibility of being turned into someone else's dinner.
It's also interesting to note that, according to this story, having camomile tea before bed is a bad thing yet I do this several night a week and find it quite pleasant. Oh dear, it looks like I've lost my innocence.
Okay, that was interesting, when I come to visit will read Peter Rabbit again, I really am not sure what age level these books are geared to. Not young tots and when old enough to have them read I felt the youngster being read to got bored with them, although, as you said, maybe it was just me.
ReplyDeleteI also think these books harken back to a different generation where grandparents (especially those living or had lived in the U.K.) felt this was required reading as these books were read to them as youngers. Adults, I feel, enjoy the series better now.
ReplyDeletehi s - what a deal! or is it? heh. looking forward to the rest of your posts on the series. i never read them as a kid and find them a bit quaint and stilted. i love the paintings though.
ReplyDeleteThe selling point is the art. Holy Moly she could paint well. I have a theory about the series (Linked to my thoughts about Pooh) and that is: Olde England was (and still is, in a lot of ways) stifling. Childhood is a blip which is stamped out of you. The Wall is a documentary.
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