Sure enough, summer reading has meandered its lazy way into the land of children's lit/books. After reading A Little Princess -- and having a marvellous time in the process -- I moved on to take a stab at some even younger fare.
I hadn't read any Thornton W. Burgess tales in such a long time. Tales involving talking critters were rather big hits with my younger self (like the Beatrix Potter tales, She Was Nice to Mice, the Miss Bianca books, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Wind in the Willows). I remembered having Burgess stories read to me before bedtime by my older sister when I was a small child, but I could remember very little about the stories themselves. So I started in on the first of his books I encountered way back then, The Adventures of Peter Cottontail, which centres around a young rabbit who, among other things, is forced to outwit the wily machinations of a rather hungry fox.
Peter's misplaced pride, his altercations with Reddy Fox, and his misunderstanding about what various creatures do during the winter, still provide a chuckle now and then (although not the alternating reactions of horror and delight I experienced as a child), and I noticed that the critters are terribly fond of playing (somewhat nasty) tricks on one another. I think the story raises some interesting questions about what friendship means -- the adventures are rife with complications resulting from duplicity and betrayal -- and these Burgess stories always seem to end good-naturedly. There just isn't enough good-natured anything, it seems, is there? When you come across it, relish it!
For my next 'young' read, I think I'm going to try a classic I have never read . . . Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Somehow, I missed reading this when I was younger. I did read (and reread), and love, Kidnapped, though. Now I'm looking forward to experiencing another classic (if a bit late).
0 scribble(s) in the margin:
Post a Comment