The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter

This collection of Beatrix Potter’s tales was where I found The Tale of Peter Rabit, The Tale of Two Bad Mice, and The Tale of Tom Kitten (the ones I recorded) as well as many others. I thought this collection of tales was truly unique. Growing up I had heard quite a few of these tales but I had no idea that there were so many. Something unique about these stories is how the characters reappear time and time again in tales other than their own. Peter Rabbit is in a lot of the stories as well as Samuel Whiskers and Tom Kitten. A lot of the characters are related as well. Something I find funny about these tales is how the stories end. There isn’t a big conclusion or a happily ever after, just “The End”. This does make sense though since they are just short tales and not long stories. I also really enjoyed this book because it gave a little background to Beatrix Potter’s life as well as “About this book” for every single Tale. The explanations of each book included the reasoning behind Beatrix writing the tale and how the story came about. I think this is a great book because not only does it have all the tales but it also provides a look in the history of each tale. My favorite tale is The Tale of Two Bad Mice. The way that Beatrix describes the dollhouse and the dolls that live there is almost comical. She doesn’t pretend that the dolls are real, but instead talks about how beautiful the meals were but they never had to be prepared because they came in a box and wouldn’t come off the plate. In the “About This Book”, it is told that Beatrix kept some of the dollhouse furniture her whole life and can still be seen in her Lakeland home today.