Beatrix - Hardcover

Jeanette Winter is the author and/or illustrator of many notable books for children, including Emily Dickinson’s Letters to the World, a Parents’ Choice Silver Honor Book, and My Baby. She lives in New York City.

Kindergarten-Grade 3-Winter turns her attention to another creative person in this introduction to the life of Potter. As in previous books, she incorporates her subject's own words to add an immediacy to the first-person account. The episodes she portrays deal mainly with Potter as a child and young woman who turned to her drawing and her animal friends in the absence of interactions with parents or friends. Children see how Potter explored science and art to maintain connections with the wider world. Her adult life receives scant attention aside from the origin of The Tale of Peter Rabbit and her purchase of Hill Top Farm. The book's small format reminds readers of the books for which Potter is famous. The generous amount of white space around each of Winter's illustrations also recalls Potter's picture books, although Winter's square pictures are all firmly edged in black, underscoring the limits and loneliness of Potter's life. Animals appear more often than humans. Jane Johnson concentrates on the story of Potter's most famous book in My Dear Noel (Dial, 1999). Alexandra Wallner's Beatrix Potter (Holiday, 1995) includes more information about the artist's adult life, and David R. Collins offers even more extensive coverage for somewhat older readers in The Country Artist (Carolrhoda, 1989). Winter's introduction conveys Potter's spirit as well as the facts of her life. Beatrix provides a fine starting place for someone curious about the woman behind Peter Rabbit, 100 years after his story was first published.
Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato
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