Peter Rabbit and Friends

For the last couple of months we've been reading a lot of Beatrix Potter's endearing classic tales. We've not covered all 23+ tales yet - just about a dozen.

The Peter Rabbit board book was Ana's first introduction to Beatrix Potter, when she was about 18 months old, and I used to simply make up the story in simple words based on the pictures in each page as, at that tender age, she might get bored if I read the full sentences as-is. Slowly, I started reading passages from the book as-is and now we read the book unadulterated and she seems to like it.

So, I decided to get a few more from the library. Two of them stand out in her mind and she wants to read them over and over: Jemima Puddleduck and Samuel Whiskers (or the Roly-Poly Pudding). She somehow identifies with Tom Kitten even though he got into trouble not listening to his mommy... And it is quite funny to watch her tie a scarf over her head and waddle along and sit on a bunch of little balls pretending to lay eggs like Jemima :)

She doesn't care much yet for The Tale of Flopsy Bunnies, The Tale of Two Bad Mice, but she likes The Tale of Benjamin Bunny and The Tale of Mrs.Tittemouse. Frogs have no teeth, Amma is her constant refrain after reading this book, as it reinforced her study of frogs at school. Frogs catch flies with their long, long tongue and eat them, Amma. And, since we have two sweet kitties at home, she is not able to believe that Peter and Banjamin were afraid of the cat and hid under the basket till Benjamin's daddy came to rescue them...

Well, I love the original illustrations and would like to collect all the books in the series for Ana's library, but, it can wait till she is ready to read on her own. The style of story-telling is very different from other stories that she has heard us read to her, so, she is still deciphering how that works - viz., "Presently, Peter sneezed. Kertyshoo!" and she associates "Presently" with "Present" and wonders if Peter got a present for sneezing...

I know, I know... she is just a 3 year old and I was barely this cognizant at that age, so, I'll take what she offers - it is way more than I could have expected :)