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| Beatrix Potter | | (And Bachman Turner Overdrive) | | 01 January 2008 | | Our grandmother will tell you that the tales of Beatrix Potter are timeless classics; but we recently pulled them off the shelf to read to our four-year-old, and we were shocked.
In fairness, the illustrations probably are timeless, and to a certain extent the make up for the antiquated dialogue, which is anyway obviously no fault of the author!
But the stories themselves are weakly plotted, violent, and frequently disturbing, and we will certainly not be exposing our offspring to them again, except perhaps as historical curiosities when he is MUCH older.
Take The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin. It is about a group of squirrels who travel on an annual nut-collecting expedition to an island in the middle of the lake. Also living on the island is an old owl, who clearly scares the bejesus out of the squirrels - we know this because they feel the need to bring him "presents", of dead mice and rabbits, in order to placate him. Now, we have a name for killing animals and offering them to a higher being - it is called sacrifice and we are frankly amazed that Potter's Victorian/ Edwardian public found this any less distasteful than we do.
Then there is The Tale of Two Bad Mice where one of the protagonists smashes up a child's dollshouse in a fit of anger, while his wife steals the furniture. And somehow this is okay, because they make up for it later by coming back and doing a spot of housework. Is this really a lesson we want to be teaching our kids?
Yes, our grandmother will tell you that the tales of Beatrix Potter are timeless classics... but then Homer Simpson would say the same thing about Bachman Turner Overdrive. |
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The point is we are all connected... through love... through loneliness... through one lamentable lapse in judgment!
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