I was about five years old when
my mother read The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter to me
for the first time. I remember enjoying the pictures very much.
I think what I enjoyed the most about them was the fact that they showed
the inside of Peter Rabbit's house under the bottom of the fir tree.
I remember being fascinated by animals' houses at this age. I always
wondered what their houses looked like inside - more specifically, if they
looked like the inside of my house. One thing in particular that
I remember being very curious about was whether or not they had furniture.
I had suspected that they did, but the illustrations on pages 55 and 57
[of the Fredrick Warne edition] confirmed this for me. I was not
at all surprised to see Mother Rabbit preparing supper at a counter using
pots and pans just the way my mother did. Peter's bed was also similar
to mine because it had a big fluffy quilt, too.
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