Kinder Cottage Publishing is a company that was founded by Howard and Ann Closs. Their goal is to produce quality products to help their children, as well as other families, learn to love western civilization.
They began with a series of 10 Peter Rabbit books:
- Tale of Peter Rabbit
- Peter Rabbit at the Farm
- Peter Rabbit's Christmas
- How Peter Rabbit Went to Sea
- Peter Rabbit Goes A-Visiting
- Peter Rabbit's Easter
- Peter Rabbit's Birthday
- When Peter Rabbit Went to School
- Peter Rabbit and the Little Boy
- Peter Rabbit and Jack the Jumper
These books are best suited for children ages 3-9, and are $4 each. They are adaptations of books originally published by the Henry Altemus company between the years of 1917 and 1922. These reprints contain the original artwork, but the text has been updated a bit (for example, the original text used the word "velocipede" for bicycle.
When Peter Rabbit Went to school is 56 pages long. Peter is sent to school (along with Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail) in order to keep him out of trouble. He disobeys at recess and goes into the woods, where he becomes lost. While lost he has some adventures, both pleasant and not-so-pleasant. He's safely returned to school, where it's decided his adventures were enough for Peter and he's not punished.
How Peter Rabbit Went to Sea is 64 pages long. In this volume, Peter once again disobeys. His mother told him not to play in the brook, yet he decided to be a pirate. He sees lots of creatures in the sea, and ends up being picked up by a sea gull. He's able to scare the bird into letting him go, and once he gets home he asks to be put straight to bed.
Micah & Nicholas both read these books and enjoyed them. They liked the adventures (trouble) that Peter got into, and I know they liked that he always made it safely home. However, as a parent, I couldn't help but note that Peter never suffers consequences. It's usually decided that the trouble he got into was consequence enough, but I would've liked to have Peter be given a consequence for disobeying in the first place. This does provide a great discussion point with your children, though, about how Peter could've avoided the trouble to begin with.
Also, just as a side note, I feel like I should mention a line in How Peter Rabbit Went to Sea that rubbed me the wrong way. On the first page, it's said that "Flopsy and Mopsy and Cotton-tail were good little girl rabbits, but Peter was a bad little boy rabbit and was always up to mischief." Probably because I have all boys, but I don't like the insinuation that Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail are good because they are girls, and that Peter is bad because he is a boy.
With all that said, if you have a young child, these books would make a wonderful addition to your home library. These books are lovely reprints. The artwork is wonderful, and I loved that the original artwork was included. At about 5 x 7 inches, they are a great size for little hands to hold and read. You can even save a bit of money buy purchasing the entire set of 10 for $30.
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