The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

A small rabbit in a blue jacket is warned by his mother to stay well clear of one particular garden, and, being a small rabbit, does exactly the opposite at the first opportunity. From this simplest of premises Beatrix Potter fashioned a book of near-flawless economy, in which mischief, real fright, and warm relief are all delivered within a few short pages that a young child can hold comfortably in two hands. It is a first adventure sized precisely for its first readers, and it has never needed a word more than it has.

What it's about

Peter Rabbit, disregarding his mother's plain caution and the sober example of his well-behaved sisters, squeezes under the gate into Mr. McGregor's garden to feast on lettuces, radishes, and beans. What follows is a breathless chase among the vegetable rows, a lost jacket and a pair of abandoned shoes, several narrow squeaks, and at last an exhausted, subdued escape home to bed and a dose of camomile tea. Potter tells the whole thing with sly humour and genuine suspense, never once talking down to her reader, and she allows Peter to face real consequences, hunger, terror, and the loss of his fine new clothes, for the crime of following his appetite where he was told not to go.

Themes

Disobedience and its costs, curiosity, mischief, appetite, and the safe harbour of home all figure in this small and perfectly balanced drama. Potter treats a child's natural hunger for adventure with real sympathy while quietly acknowledging that a mother's rules usually exist for good reasons, and that a scare is sometimes its own lesson.

Why it still matters

Potter's marriage of spare, precise prose with her own exquisitely observed watercolour illustrations set a standard for the picture book that has very rarely been equalled since. More than a century on, Peter's frantic dash through the cabbages still delivers a perfectly judged shiver and a thoroughly satisfying homecoming, proving how much lasting story can be packed into the smallest of books.

Who it's for

For the very youngest readers and listeners, for parents and grandparents building a child's first library, and for grown-ups who want to revisit one of the small, enduring, faultless pleasures of the nursery.