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Hare-Brained Books About Bunnies
Beware of Beatrix Potter rip-offs. Look for books with her words and pictures or other good tales of rabbits
Children’s-book reviewers are a contentious lot. They argue about everything from banned books to the winners of the American Library Association’s highest honors, the Newbery and Caldecott medals.
But the they tend to agree on two issues: Beatrix Potter was one of the greatest children’s book authors of all time, and she excelled in part because her words and art merge seamlessly.
So you might think it would be reckless for anyone to try to one-up Potter by bringing out books that have her text but someone else’s pictures, or vice versa. If you do, you overestimate the wisdom of American publishers.
At this time of year, bookstores abound with rip-offs and knock-offs of Potter’s groundbreaking The Tale of Peter Rabbit, a book that blazed trails not just with its sublime artistry but with its scaled-down, square format (which Potter chose so it would fit “small hands”).
