Customer Reviews

The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck (Potter Original)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I always had Beatrix Potter down as an avatar of Home Counties tweeness, with her anti-modern paeans to the countryside and de liddle cuddly animals. So the unsentimental brutalities of this story came as a welcome shock. 'Jemima Puddle-Duck' is as endearingly hopeless as her name suggests, unable to tend her eggs in the overcrowded barn she shares with some supercilious hens. She flies over the forest in search of a suitably solitary spot, and comes across a helpful gentleman dressed in tweed, reading 'The Sporting Times'. He is a fox, and invites her to make use of his summer residence, in particular the shed carpeted with the feathers of previous victims. Dazzled by his good breeding, Jemima accepts his offer and visits daily. When the eggs are about to hatch, Foxy suggests she bring along various goodies so they can have a charming goodbye party...

The unremitting violence in this story does not emanate from where you'd expect, and this clear-eyed vision of the natural order of things, of brute force vs. cunning, takes place in the most idyllic setting yuou can think of, a richly detailed rural England, its hills and plants alive and painted in the most soothing colours. But even this balmy backdrop plays out a cycle of struggle for domination, with spiders eating flies, and various other creatures being horrid to one another.

Written at the turn of the 20th century, just before female emancipation, it's hard not to see the woebegotten Jemima as an image of women's fate in a world run by men, both good and bad, with the fox as parisitic aristo in straitened circumstances, and the dog as paternalistic liberal. Indeed, the whole thing plays like an Emile Zola potboiler disguised as toddler fodder. Upsetting, cruel and marvellous.

This IS the story of Jemima Puddleduck, and it can be read to children. It loses a lot of its interest value without the pictures, but the story is still good.

The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck was the first Beatrix Potter book I read when I was young. It is the tale of a barnyard duck named Jemima who wishes to hatch her own eggs instead of leaving the task to the hens. She decides to leave and find a place to nest and encounters a polite gentleman with sandy whiskers who so kindly offers his help. It is a charming tale, as so many of Ms. Potter's stories are, complete with an endearing if not somewhat naive duck, a handsome yet sly fox and a wise old collie dog. The illustrations are quite nice, with some beautiful countryside scenes of Sawrey where the author lived. This story is a pleasure to read.

I thought this was such a horrible book. So the duck runs away, shacks up with a fox who is going to eat her eggs. The duck tells a dog who brings his puppies to "save" the duck and her eggs. They kill the fox and then eat her eggs. How is this a children's book!? And I thought the Peter Rabbit book of this series was bad. I am throwing the other two of this series away without bother even looking at them.

Without pictures this book is incomplete at best. Beatrix is known for her beautiful pictures and it is wrong, even insulting, to present her works without them. There is good news however... project gutenberg has translated ALL beatrix Potter books with pictures for the Kindle free (if you read on a color device such as a pc, you can see the pictures in color). You can get to project gutenberg here...[...]

Granted this version of the story has no pictures but it still is a great read. A helpful activity to engage your child might be to have them create their own picture book of the story well you read it. Only a small part at the end that I thought would not be ok for the 6 and under crowd but adults should always preread to double check. Very good story.

THE TALE OF JEMIMA PUDDLE-DUCK is one of Beatrix Potter's lesser known tales, but it is still a favorite in our house. Jemima is a duck who wishes to hatch her own eggs. Apparently it is common on farms for hens to sit on duck eggs. Ducks in general, and Miss Jemima in particular, do not have the patience to sit on a nest for 28 days, so farmers transfer the eggs to hens. Jemima, however, is quite determined to hatch her own brood, and searches for a calm, quiet place to do so. In a secluded clearing, she meets an elegantly dressed gentleman with a long bushy tail, who is reading a newspaper. Jemima thinks he is mighty civil and handsome, and he is very solicitous of her plight. Jemima takes the sandy colored gentleman up on his offer of a safe, dry place to hatch her eggs. But there is more to this gentleman than meets the eye. Is he really as selfless as he seems?

THE TALE OF JEMIMA PUDDLE-DUCK quietly and deftly teaches children to be wary of strangers. This simple tale completely captures the imagination of young ones as they follow Jemima on her misadventures. As always, it is Ms. Potter's charming illustrations that are the true star of this book. Jemima looks like a real duck, albeit one who is wearing a bonnet and cape. The soft colors and rich detail of the original drawings continue to delight children of all ages.

My three year old has a special affinity to THE TALE OF JEMIMA PUDDLE-DUCK. Whenever the story refers to Jemima's sister-in-law, Mrs. Rebecca Puddle-duck, my wee one says, "That's me, Momma!" Any book that captures the imagination of my little puddle-duck is a winner with me.

I recognize that this is a classic, and can be weighed on its literary merit in that regard. From the perspective of women's history and the allegories in the story-- fine.

However, this is a brutal story. The tragedy of the mother-figure losing all of her eggs to dogs, and then only being allowed to keep some of her second set of eggs is deeply disturbing to both kids and potentially adult readers. There is enough real-world tragedy without adding this story into the mix for leisure reading. Better to discuss those realities with kids, when they are old enough, than to introduce a brutal read disguised as an animal story.

Both my little children love this story. It's a short story to be read in one sitting. Of course with the Kindle version you don't get Beatix's wonderful artwork but my kids don't seem to care. And for the price it fits my budget perfectly. I highly recommend it.

bought it to read to my child. kind of a morbid story for kids, but it was written in what 1908? still, it was free.