Customer Reviews

Mrs. Peter Rabbit (Dover Children's Thrift Classics)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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The adventures of Peter Rabbit continue in this excellent addition to Thornton W. Burgess' series on the animals of the Green Meadows. In this tale Peter Rabbit becomes lonely due to inability to leave his the safe haven of his briar-patch which keeps him safe from predators. So, Peter decides to move to the nearby Old Pasture area, it is there that he is met with new adventures that keep Peter at the top of his wits. In the Old Pasture, he also meets two new rabbits: A grumpy, territorial one that wants nothing more than to rid the Old Pasture of Peter's presence, and that rabbit's daughter who quickly forms an infatuation for Peter. Peter also becomes fond of the female rabbit very quickly. Their relationship quickly blossoms, and leads up to a delightful surprise ending.

This book is an easy to read 82 page tale with excellent illustrations. The chapters start with a short, well written descriptive poem that Burgess uses to briefly describe the main theme of his short chapters that make for easy bedtime reading installments.

Younger children will love this book being read aloud, older children will love reading this book and I believe adults will be impressed by the quality of Burgess' writing in this book. I highly recommend.

Darien Summers, author of The Mischievous Hare, a children's book. The Mischievous Hare

My kids love it! They constantly ask for more. The book teaches them about nature in a delightful and often funny way. All books in this series are not at all moralistic but kids learn common sence wisdom, good behavior and morals any way. Very Much recommended. (My children are 5 and 7)

This is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it. However, the prospective buyer should be informed that the illustrations in this Dover edition are NOT by the original illustrator, Harrison Cady. Instead, they are crude redrawings by another artist, Thea Kliros. Although they are better than the illustrations in the Dover titles for which artist Pat Stewart did the crude redrawings, they are not as charming as Cady's work.

Some of the other titles in this Dover series of Thornton Burgess books do have original Harrison Cady illustrations.

Harrison Cady did two sets of drawings for this title; 8 color ones for Little, Brown, and 4 B&W ones for Grosset & Dunlap. The B&W redrawings in this Dover edition are of the 8 Little, Brown color illustrations.

To get real Harrison Cady illustrations, you'll have to buy a used book. There were two sets of original Harrison Cady illustrations for this title:
-- Published by Little, Brown, with 8 full-page color illustrations.
-- Published by Grosset & Dunlap, with 4 full-page B&W illustratins.

I'd recommend the Little, Brown edition. A good place to find one is AbeBooks.com.

If you're looking for old editions, the library binding version of the Grosset & Dunlap edition was titled "The Adventures of Mrs. Peter Rabbit" (instead of just "Mrs. Peter Rabbit").