It’s our first rainy Friday in the longest time
So this morning the littles and I stayed in and read. Mice, more mice, is what Rilla wants these days. Kittens and hedgehogs are an acceptable substitute. Any small creature that wears clothing, really.
So first it was The Story of Miss Moppet—four times! I ask you. They kept begging and begging.
Then The Tale of Tom Kitten, which is crammed with delicious language. All Beatrix Potter is, but this one especially tickles me.
“While they were in difficulties, there was a pit pat, paddle pat! and the three Puddle-ducks came along the hard high road…”
and
“‘My friends will arrive in a minute, and you are not fit to be seen; I am affronted,’ said Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit.”
That petulant “I am affronted” cracks me up every time. Mrs. Tabitha is the Mrs. Bennet of B. Potter characters.
And then finally we got to the necessary mice. Well, mouse, singular. We read about half of The Mouse of Amherst (speaking of delicious language). She didn’t remember it from three years ago, which made it all the more fun. Seven is the perfect age for this loveliest of little books.
I slept too late to get any Howards End in, but did grab a few minutes for …on the Landing. Now that I’ve determined I’m going to buy a copy, I may save the rest for later and turn to one of the other interlibrary loans I have piled up, as time is ticking and they can’t always be renewed. I have The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop and a couple of Gladys Taber’s Stillmeadow books, which were recommended to me in the memoir thread the other week. I also got hold of Helene Hanff’s Elizabeth I biography for children—she admired Elizabeth so, and it seemed a fun choice for a sampling of her children’s nonfiction.
Louise says:
“Mrs. Tabitha is the Mrs. Bennet of B. Potter characters.” Spot on! When Joy was four, she used to use that line for everything that bothered her – “I have to clean up my messy room? I am affronted!” I love hearing Beatrix Potter’s language coming out of wee little kids’ mouths; it’s the funniest thing in the world. Especially because they aren’t doing it on purpose to be funny.
On March 1, 2014 at 5:24 am
jep says:
I am a retired public school librarian and so appreciate Beatrix Potter and her language.
After reading here, I pulled my copy of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop off the shelf and opened it to one of the post-it flagged pages: p.36 Lewis Buzbee writes, “The books of our childhood offer a vivid door to our own pasts, and not necessarily for the stories we read there, but for the memories of where we were and who we were when we were reading them; to remember a book is to remember the child who read that book.”
On March 1, 2014 at 9:35 am