lthough I would like to be able to say that my interest in Beatrix Potter started when I was a young child, I have to admit that Ludwig Bemelman's Madeline was my childhood book character heroine. Peter Rabbit had yet to make his appearance.
t was many years later that Beatrix Potter came to my attention, in a graduate children's literature course in library school when Professor Harriet Quimby told us that she thought The Tale of Peter Rabbit was 'the most perfect picture book ever written'. It was then that I began to explore the Little Books and when I later became a children's librarian in a Connecticut public library I read the stories to children many times and shared with them the magic of Beatrix Potter's text and pictures.
n 1984 I saw an announcement in Horn Book Magazine about an International Beatrix Potter Study Conference to be held in England and I knew that it would be a perfect opportunity for me to discover more about Beatrix Potter. It would also give me another chance to travel to England, for my sister had married a Yorkshireman and the family were living in West Yorkshire. I applied for - and received - a grant from the Connecticut Library Association to attend the Conference in the Lake District and thus began my lasting love affair with that beautiful part of the world. One of the conditions of the grant was that I would be required to speak to Connecticut children's librarians about what I had learned, and that talk was the first of my continuing program of slide talks about the life and times of Beatrix Potter. I remember that first Conference vividly, flying into Manchester, renting a car and driving - with no sleep and up the 'wrong side' of the road - to Ambleside.
y slide talks have taken me to many interesting places and have led to my meeting with wonderful people. At a talk to a senior citizen group in the UK an elderly gentleman told me that, when he was a boy during the war, an American soldier had given him a Peter Rabbit cup and saucer, a gesture he had never forgotten. At a talk I gave at a library in South western Indiana a member of the audience introduced himself as having been a member of The Royal Ballet in London and had danced in the Beatrix Potter ballet, The Tale of the Tales. You never know who you are going to meet next!
have recently retired as Library Director of the Cora J. Belden Library in Rocky Hill, CT. I now live on Cape Cod and I have more time to work as the North American Liaison Officer of the London-based Beatrix Potter Society. I have a black-and-white Springer Spaniel called Pete – and you can guess who he is named after! A colleague recently wrote to me, "I'm glad you are having such fun with Beatrix Potter. I am sure that she would be glad about it, too."
lick on 'Calendar' or on 'Talks/Links' and you will see where I am speaking next. And just 'Contact me' if you would like me to come your way!
t was many years later that Beatrix Potter came to my attention, in a graduate children's literature course in library school when Professor Harriet Quimby told us that she thought The Tale of Peter Rabbit was 'the most perfect picture book ever written'. It was then that I began to explore the Little Books and when I later became a children's librarian in a Connecticut public library I read the stories to children many times and shared with them the magic of Beatrix Potter's text and pictures.
n 1984 I saw an announcement in Horn Book Magazine about an International Beatrix Potter Study Conference to be held in England and I knew that it would be a perfect opportunity for me to discover more about Beatrix Potter. It would also give me another chance to travel to England, for my sister had married a Yorkshireman and the family were living in West Yorkshire. I applied for - and received - a grant from the Connecticut Library Association to attend the Conference in the Lake District and thus began my lasting love affair with that beautiful part of the world. One of the conditions of the grant was that I would be required to speak to Connecticut children's librarians about what I had learned, and that talk was the first of my continuing program of slide talks about the life and times of Beatrix Potter. I remember that first Conference vividly, flying into Manchester, renting a car and driving - with no sleep and up the 'wrong side' of the road - to Ambleside.
y slide talks have taken me to many interesting places and have led to my meeting with wonderful people. At a talk to a senior citizen group in the UK an elderly gentleman told me that, when he was a boy during the war, an American soldier had given him a Peter Rabbit cup and saucer, a gesture he had never forgotten. At a talk I gave at a library in South western Indiana a member of the audience introduced himself as having been a member of The Royal Ballet in London and had danced in the Beatrix Potter ballet, The Tale of the Tales. You never know who you are going to meet next!
have recently retired as Library Director of the Cora J. Belden Library in Rocky Hill, CT. I now live on Cape Cod and I have more time to work as the North American Liaison Officer of the London-based Beatrix Potter Society. I have a black-and-white Springer Spaniel called Pete – and you can guess who he is named after! A colleague recently wrote to me, "I'm glad you are having such fun with Beatrix Potter. I am sure that she would be glad about it, too."
lick on 'Calendar' or on 'Talks/Links' and you will see where I am speaking next. And just 'Contact me' if you would like me to come your way!
"We really enjoyed your slide talk on the life of Beatrix Potter. It was a pleasure to hear about her life from someone who is so knowledgeable."
Beth DeGeer, Bartlesville, Oklahoma Public Library