It worked out that last week all my reading was about animals and that thread continues into this week as I read Fresh from the Country. Not that there is a lot of talk of animals in my current Miss Read read but Potter's wonderful story of The Tailor of Gloucester gets a mention as the protaganist Anna Lacey returns to her home at the Christmas holiday and stops in at the local village school where she is invited to sit next to the fire and listen as the teacher reads the little book to her small group of attentive students. It is a welcome respite as Anna struggles with the challenges of teaching 48 students at once in a classroom built of steel and glass.
I have encountered several references and fitting quotations from Potter's work in Miss Read's books and the author's affection extends to the naming of her newly adopted cat Tiggy. The namesake of the slim volume of remembrances is easy to fall in love with and was quite an eye opener into the nature of cats which is a foreign area for me (I grew up in a committed family of dog lovers and that love goes back for generations). Any animal lover can easily relate to Miss Read's resistance to allowing another furry creature into her heart after losing one too many but it was also easy to see that her resistance was futile for it was only a matter of time before the mother cat and her kittens had found a new home with Miss Read and her family.
So it was Miss Read who inspired me to finally read all 23 of Potter's tales in order that I would know the stories behind each reference or pet name. As a child I was more apt to look at the pictures in Miss Potter's little books than read the stories and I have only read a handful to my own children. Whether I liked the story or not, the art of Potter still continues to make the greatest impression. I did fall in love with The Tailor of Gloucester, The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and The Tale of Ginger and Pickles (which struck me as funny since it wasn't big on plot). I finally read The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies (as a child I always got stuck on the word 'soporific' and quickly moved on to look at the pictures) and it was a joy to revisit The Tale of Two Bad Mice which was my favorite as a child.
Reading Potter's canon was long overdue. She is one of those authors where it seems a crime not to have read the majority of her work and having done so has added a new layer of depth to my reading of Miss Read. So now I return to Anna as she faces the daunting summer term and my hopes of her finding a village school post somewhere near a certain Mr. Drew continue to build.
So it was Miss Read who inspired me to finally read all 23 of Potter's tales in order that I would know the stories behind each reference or pet name. As a child I was more apt to look at the pictures in Miss Potter's little books than read the stories and I have only read a handful to my own children. Whether I liked the story or not, the art of Potter still continues to make the greatest impression. I did fall in love with The Tailor of Gloucester, The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and The Tale of Ginger and Pickles (which struck me as funny since it wasn't big on plot). I finally read The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies (as a child I always got stuck on the word 'soporific' and quickly moved on to look at the pictures) and it was a joy to revisit The Tale of Two Bad Mice which was my favorite as a child.
Reading Potter's canon was long overdue. She is one of those authors where it seems a crime not to have read the majority of her work and having done so has added a new layer of depth to my reading of Miss Read. So now I return to Anna as she faces the daunting summer term and my hopes of her finding a village school post somewhere near a certain Mr. Drew continue to build.
