Beatrix Potter Anyone?

I never dreamed I'd get to see a photo of Beatrix Potter. Did you? Oh, you know already? You knew she was born in 1866?! You knew her Peter Rabbit children's adventure story was first published in 1902?

All the facts of the author's life are not the subject of this Entry. What I really want to talk about is 'why' and 'how' the story of Peter Rabit grabbed me so strongly it still casts a spell over me. It has been, and still is, far and away my most favorite children's story.  When I was a child the drawings for the story always instantly moved me. Today the same story brings back precious memories not only of my own childhood, but the childhood I sometimes shared with my same-age cousins in the country where rabbits were a constant fact of life on an Australian sheep station.  My own children have an edition of Peter Rabbit in which the drawings are by someone new: trouble is, they left out illustrating the climactic moment when Peter's blue coat, made by his most loving mother, gets caught in a net that prevents birds from ruining Farmer John's garden products. To escape, Peter must abandon his beautiful, new coat. The omission of this graphic strongly suggests the dynamics of the story have sometimes been misunderstood, or simply taken for granted.

Emboldened by this mistake I dare to conjecture on the reasons for the 100 plus years success with children and their parents this splendid story has enjoyed. A review of a just published biography of Beatrix Potter reports that the author paid extremely close watch on the artist's depictions of her characters, as well as on every other detail of the printing and marketting of her stories. This review, published in the LA Times on Sunday January 20, 2007, contains a photo of Beatrix taken in 1885. The photo is haunting, haunted, touching, strangely sad, private almost. One can thoroughly believe her statement, while we look at this photo, that she can remember vividly every event of her childhood, and enjoyed a lifelong love for Nature and animals.

Peter was disobedient. He stole the farmer's food. He lost his new coat given to him by his mother. He was very nearly caught and killed by the irate farmer.  He was stealing food at the very same time that his mother had taken her basket and set out alone to purchase food. In every detail this scenario matches events in my childhood. Just as did my mother, Peter's mother sheltered her precious son, didn't rebuke him or embarrass him with questions about his missing coat. Peter's mother, just like my mother, probably gritted her teeth, looked the other way, and allowed her son freedom in which to 'find' himself. 

I pray this somewhat unconventional interpretation doesn't ruffle feathers of the upright strict disciplinarians who may have other views.   

Barry  http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/