Beatrix - Hardcover

Winter, Jeanette

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374306559 ISBN 13: 9780374306557

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2003

Synopsis

Captures the artist's life and work

Beatrix Potter's childhood was characterized by a distinctly Victorian mixture of privilege and neglect. Her parents were distant and distracted, so she was left largely to her own devices. She found companionship in nature, in the small animals she met in the family's garden and in the countryside on summer visits. And she found happiness in drawing and writing stories about her animal friends, later the inspiration for The Tale of Peter Rabbit and her twenty-two other books.

Beatrix Potter's own words, taken from her letters and journals, are incorporated in Jeanette Winter’s book -- just slightly larger than Beatrix Potter’s little books -- and this portrait pays a glowing tribute to the grande dame of children’s literature.

About this title

About the Author

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.

From School Library Journal

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
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0374306559
• ISBN 13: 9780374306557
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 64
• Illustrator: Winter Jeanette