Tweetspeak Poetry

Children’s Books: 14 Reasons The Tale of Peter Rabbit Should Be Banned

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children's books peter rabbit

Oh, Peter Rabbit!

Editor’s Note:

Some of our commenters mistake this for our actual opinion (as if we would ever actually care to ban a book!). It’s an exaggeration, for the sake of smiles. No need to let us know it’s “wrong,” since we’re only joking.

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Let’s just get this out here right now: I found certain children’s books disturbing as a child. Some children’s books I still find disturbing as an adult.

Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Peter Rabbit is one such book.

It is possible my children—one now an adult and one dangerously close—have never heard the story. I certainly didn’t read it to them. One received a baby quilt with illustrations from Beatrix Potter’s books, when he was born. Wrapping him in it was cause for inner debate: illustrations to the inside where I couldn’t see them, or on the outside so they wouldn’t touch and frighten him by osmosis. Usually I picked up another blanket.

This week I unexpectedly received independent confirmation that I was not alone in the deep discomfort I experienced as a child with this book. Support came unsolicited from a reasonable individual who is both highly intelligent and extremely well read. Of course, during the same conversation I was introduced to an alternate reading of the tale, a deeply satisfying association with the young rabbits who earned a bowl of blackberries for their good behavior from another reasonable individual, also highly intelligent and extremely well read.

Perhaps it just goes to show: one man’s nightmare is another’s tale of triumph. Okay, so maybe the book shouldn’t really be banned. But…

Let me explain why the Tale of Peter Rabbit is distressing. Perhaps you’ll see it my way.

1. Your father was baked into a pie

I don’t think the story could start off any worse than with four sweet, furry bunnies being shuffled out the door by a mother with a daily reminder to stay away from Mr. McGregor’s garden: “Your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.”

children's books peter rabbit 32. An immediate sense of foreboding: Peter was on his way to big, big trouble

Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail were, reportedly, “good little bunnies.” Peter was “very naughty.” He was set up for failure. For a sensitive young reader, it was just a matter of time and the waiting (and page-turning) was nearly unbearable.

3. He lost his shoes

I’m told the sense of security that comes from snugly laced shoes is not universal. But I don’t believe it. Potter has the hapless little rabbit losing his shoes before the reader can count all ten toes. One here in the cabbages, the other there amongst the potatoes.

4. The gooseberry net!

Gooseberry nets belong in a B horror film. I’ve never eaten a gooseberry. The very sound of the word leaves me frozen in fear of being caught in a gooseberry’s net. Without shoes.

5. Brass buttons on a navy blue coat

Beatrix Potter may as well have snagged me in the gooseberry net along with Peter. Maybe I owned a similar coat. Or had brass buttons on some item of clothing. I had the sensation when reading the story of being inside the blue jacket with the brass buttons. (Writers, a tip: use detail. Over 40 years later and I’m still not over the brass buttons.)

children's books peter rabbit 26. He gave himself up for lost

Peter gave up and shed big tears. A boy only did that when he felt completely hopeless. It was devastating.

7. Peter lost his clothes

As though losing his shoes were not bad enough, now he lost his clothes. He was naked (always upsetting in a children’s story, unless it involved the Emperor, in which case it was hysterical) and pursued by an angry gardener with a rake. Now he couldn’t run; he just had to hide.

8. Mr. McGregor had huge feet

The only image of Mr. McGregor that I recall is of his boot about to crush a terrified little bunny. Peter has no shoes and Mr. McGregor has an enormous boot. 

9. Beatrix Potter is a villain from the wizarding world

Beatrix sounds suspiciously like Bellatrix. And her last name is Potter. I think it’s pretty clear who we’re dealing with here, and it’s more than a little Lestrange.

10. It keeps getting worse

Just when I would feel relief that Peter was about to escape, another hopeless disaster presents itself. He couldn’t get out under the door in the wall because he was a “fat little rabbit.” A “good rabbit” wouldn’t have eaten so much lettuce that he couldn’t get under a door. (Name me one person who ever got fat eating lettuce?) This may somehow relate to my never liking the youth camp stuff-one-more-marshmallow-in-your-mouth game called “Pudgy Bunnies.”

peter rabbit blue jacket

11. There’s a field mouse with a pea in its mouth

I don’t know why that matters but there’s something very bad about a field mouse holding a pea. Whatever it is runs deeper than the mouse’s lack of compassion.

12. Mr. McGregor turned Peter’s jacket and shoes into a scarecrow

Holy hell. Who does that?

13. His mother was cooking turnips

I was never comfortable with turnips.

14. Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail got their blackberries

You know what? Don’t even get me started on these goody two-shoes who always did the right thing and never had to run for their lives from Mr. McGregor’s rake. Bet you a dime and a donut that Mopsy put Peter up to it.

I’ll bet she got his blackberries, too.

Photo by Jim the Photographer, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Illustrations by Frederick Warne, public domain. Post by Will Willingham.

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About Will Willingham

I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel is Adjustments.

Comments

  1. Sharon O says

    Totally cute writing. I loved it. But I also love the Peter Rabbit stories and also the ‘show’ now on Nick Jr.
    I needed something light hearted to read this morning. Thank you.

    • LW Willingham says

      Thanks, Sharon. 🙂 The person I was talking to about Peter Rabbit (the conversation that led to the post) really liked the story and didn’t experience the angst I did with it. But I associated more with Peter, and she with the bunnies who got the blackberries at the end, not the belly ache.

      So I don’t suppose we can really ban it… 😉

  2. Dea says

    Well, on a positive note, at least there are no wolves in the story eating grandmothers alive and finding their end in a pot of boiling water. Just saying…

    • LW Willingham says

      Which is so funny, because Red Riding Hood didn’t bother me. 😉 I did think her plight was very predictable — I mean, who couldn’t see some disaster coming when she was sent off into the woods alone? But it didn’t scare me. Peter Rabbit? 101 Dalmatians? Oh, yeah. Oh my. 🙂

      Was just having a conversation here about how fairy tales help children learn and face frightening situations, and I wonder if the writers of them knew this on some level.

      • Amber says

        Yes of course they knew; that is the purpose of almost all children’s writing, and pretty much all children’s stories written in the late 1800s + 1900s. Children’s literature as a whole evolved from purely diadtic writing. One lesson from the Tale of Peter Rabbit is what happens when you don’t heed your mothers warning. What can happen when you over indulge. The trouble with selfish behaviour. So on and so forth.

  3. L. L. Barkat says

    The Beatrix Bellatrix thing totally made me laugh.

    I love the style of this piece. It takes a good head to get back into the child’s mind and assume the more limited perspective (like the wonderful thing about the turnips). Quite smart. Quite amusing. 🙂

    • LW Willingham says

      That was a late addition — attesting to the benefit of letting a piece sit a while and coming back to it. Trying to learn how to keep revising a “funny” piece to make the funny funnier. 😉

  4. Monica Sharman says

    I wish Katherine Paterson would come over and read this. She’d like it. Some of her books were banned.

    One thing about these disturbing things? I think I could have come up with them (and worse) myself, when I was a girl. That’s probably why I like this book so much and read it over and over again to my young kids. (Confession: I always had the most fun reading the part about the father in a pie. I always did it with a certain tone of voice and facial expression—dispassionate, aloof, the way I imagine certain Jane Austen characters.)

    And you know, it never occurred to me that Mopsy put Peter up to it, but now that you mention it…

    Totally agree with LL’s comment about the style. “…and it’s more than a little Lestrange.”

    • LW Willingham says

      Honestly, Monica, I don’t even *remember* the line about baking father rabbit in the pie. When I pulled the story up to look at it, I was even more horrified than I was when I was small. Apparently it was traumatic enough my memory was seared.

      What did me in was the one-thing-after-another and knowing he was going to be in more trouble and/or danger with every page. Like the person who can’t make a single good choice to save his life. Reading the book was an exercise in dread. 🙂

  5. Elizabeth W. Marshall says

    I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

    There is so much violence in Mother Goose too. Wow. It is a wonder we all made it through childhood unscathed. Or maybe we didn’t 🙂

    Four and 20 black birds baked in a pie
    All the Kings Horses and All His Men couldn’t manage to heal the poor soul who tumbled off the wall
    Jack scorched his bum on a candle
    Who lives in a shoe?
    There were bare cupboards and broken crowns and well it goes on and on.

    Poor Peter though may have had it the worst.

    This is delightful. I want more of this sort of writing. Brilliantly funny.

    Or should I cry. It’s a hard call to make.

    • LW Willingham says

      I don’t know if you remember when we did the Ordinary Genius book club, but I talked about the sick feeling I had when I read the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, too. 🙂 But Addonizio talks in her book about this idea that fairy tales are important in our development because they give children a manageable framework in which to confront fears. I’ve always found this fascinating, almost the idea that children need the chance to rehearse these things in a benign environment in order to be able to confront them when the dangers are real.

      https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2012/10/17/ordinary-genius/

  6. Kelly Chripczuk says

    My children, especially my oldest, loved this book. But have you ever read her other stories? Talk about disturbing – we have a whole collection of them. Also have you noticed what high level of vocabulary she employed? Everything from the sparrows who “implored him to exert himself” to the use of terms like “soporific” in other tales. Perhaps Potter should be required reading for students studying for the vocabulary portion of the GRE!

    • LW Willingham says

      I have to say I haven’t read her others. (Peter was enough. 😉 ) I love what you’re saying about her vocabulary, though. Maybe I should pick up those other titles and learn a few new words. 😉

  8. Patricia @ Pollywog Creek says

    So cute. I was not nurtured with books before I could read, so I wasn’t even familiar with Beatrix Potter and the Story of Peter Rabbit until I was an adult with children of my own. I’ll have to ask them if I frightened them with my enthusiasm for the story. =)

  10. Donna says

    Wow… I need to go back and read this story – I don’t remember any of this! I cracked up at the reference to Harry Potter… thanks for the Hyperlink … I needed it!

    The violence in Fairy Tales has always been a big topic of discussion in my former life in Early Childhood Education. I agree with Addonizio, but they’re not for every child that’s for sure. Like Sweet Little You with a heart so big and a keen ability to feel deeply and even take the perspective of others at a young age! Although, now that I think about it this adventure in rabbit living may have helped you learn about yourself… to maybe see how absolutely kind hearted and sensitive you were/are, and maybe taught you about speaking up for the little guy as well as yourself? so even still I wonder if it served a purpose?

    • LW Willingham says

      You give me too much credit, Donna. 😉 It’s more likely I the type of personality that felt guilty about everything (though my parents will tell you I was a fairly compliant child so it wasn’t that I actually *was* guilty of everything), so identifying with Peter was no-brainer. 🙂

  11. SimplyDarlene says

    Gah!

    There is far too much weird scariness in children’s stories. Like Patricia, I never knew of these tales until adulthood. Oh, I’m so glad because I already have enough emotional distress with clowns and dolls.

    • LW Willingham says

      Certain dolls, yes. 🙂

      I’m going to explore the roots of the clown thing one day. Seems like it is a common experience for so many people. 😉

  12. Linda says

    I understand – completely. We had a big record with this story on it (Do you remember records?), and it was just really kind of creepy.
    And another thing…..we had a big “Pinocchio” book. It smelled funny and the illustrations were frightening. I was afraid to open the silly thing when I was a little girl. I don’t think I’d want to open it now.

    • LW Willingham says

      Yes, Linda, I remember records. Grew up with them, including a set of fairy tales on records with books to follow along. I loved them (in a love-hate sort of way since more often than not the stories creeped me out but I couldn’t seem to resist their pull). Parts of Pinocchio were okay. I had to skip other parts. If the book had smelled funny that probably would have been a deal breaker for me. 😉

    • LW Willingham says

      The Tinies are so cool. 😉 If you ever have the chance, be sure to stop at the Gorey house on Cape Cod. https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2013/08/21/edward-gorey-house/

      That kind of thing I actually really enjoy, and did then. It was the idea of Peter getting in trouble with such dire consequences (capture, death by pie, belly ache, no blackberries — that kind of stuff) that I think made Potter’s tale such a traumatic read for me.

      One of my favorites from Gorey:

      edward gorey doll in window

      • Heather Eure says

        Yes! Of course you’re familiar with him. I now remember the feature on the Gorey house come to think of it.
        I understand the distinction you make between the two. Peter kept making choices that inched him closer toward the middle of a flaky pie crust, or worse, the wrath of his overwrought mother. The Tinies fate was certain… and rather quick.

        The picture! Alas, is that poor Yorick? 😉

  16. Richard Maxson says

    I never read Peter Rabbit, I was raised on the Yarn of the Nancy Bell, about cannibalism at sea. But this piece is hilarious nevertheless and makes me want to go out and get a copy. Every section had me laughing, but I’m with Heather about “Holy Hell. Who does that?” Perfect!

  19. Diana Trautwein says

    I never heard of Peter Rabbit until I was an adult. And even then, I didn’t read it – I saw a video! And I so loved the drawings, that I bought baby dishes for grandkids, etc. I have a love/hate relationship with being scared by books/visuals. Cannot stand horror movies. Detest them. But murder mysteries – oh, yeah. By the bushel basketful. So maybe we could just see Beatrix as an early purveyor of good mystery?

  20. JLYate says

    Yes, the fear and privations are there, but so is Mother Rabbit’ excellent diet sense – lettuce, carrots, peas, berries and Peter going for chamomile. Get the kids eating fruit again!

  21. Laura Brown says

    In my worst dreams, I’m barefoot and without my glasses. Terror. It was only a few years ago that I was able to get on an airplane wearing only sandals, and if we didn’t have to remove them to fly, I probably never would have, um, taken that step.

    Somewhere I have a wee book telling “The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit.” Today he would be called a bully.

  22. Charity Singleton Craig says

    I missed this the first time around and now am HOWLING! Great writing, LW! I have this same discomfort with a lot of children’s fairy tales: Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella. Heck, I used to have actual nightmares each April when we would watch the broadcast television airing of Wizard of Oz. But you are right about one thing, Peter Cotton Tail and Beatrix Potter are portrayed as ethereal, water-colored, pastel story pictures, and oh boy, is that a ruse!

  23. Angela says

    Laughed out loud reading this! Last year I opened a Peter Rabbit collection to read to my seven-year-old daughter and was surprised by the stories. I found myself fighting the urge to sugarcoat, as her eyes became saucers. In the end, I decided the realities of his bunny life held some good lessons.

    I remember reading through various fairy tales in a university lit class. Afterwards, we read through “cleaned up” versions and laughed. They certainly lost something in translation.

    Thanks!

    • LW Willingham says

      Seems like a lot of stories have been made much more benign. It’s fascinating to read some of the fairy tales if you go back closer to their original versions.

      So even while I was frightened by some of them, I find their modern iterations rather insipid. 🙂

  24. Me says

    I was given the set of Beatrix Potter a few years ago and held on to them like they were treasure ready for when my daughter was old enough to sit up with me and want me to read stories to her. I had never read any Beatrix Potter as a child and always understood that I’d missed out on a classic series. When I first read Peter Rabbit to her, I was shocked. The language from the start is full of judgement and I too noticed how Peter Rabbit is judge long before anything has happened. I found the same when I went on to read Nutkin squirrel. In both cases I was deliberately changing the text, so the whole experience seem pointless. I love the illustrations, but I carefully introduced other books in their place. I found the experience of reading them sad and though I want to get rid of them, I actually wouldn’t want any other kids to read them either.

  25. Farah says

    I’ve watched a cartoon movie about bunnies who go to the forest and collect fruits, and also one naughty bunny who go into a garden their mother warned them about, but I think it was inspired by The Tale of Peter Rabbit. I really don’t remember the name of the movie at all, and I honestly loved it so much as a kid and I still remember the events; I am 22 years old university student and going to graduate this year. I am currently studying this wonderful, cute, educational Tale about this naughty bunny. For the points above, I disagree hard with you about the first point. First, since they’re bunnies and a children’s story book; you’ll not expect a writer to write ”His father was killed/ murdered by the McGregor’s family, and were eaten” This will definitely horrify the days of the child, so for a more simple and light way, the writer wrote ”Your father had an accident, and was put in a pie” as simple and not scary as that since they’re animals, not human beings.

    For point 6, What do you expect of children to do when they get stuck in a net or something similar to that? they’d immediately cry, give up and surrender themselves.

    What I learnt from the whole story is that naughty children who disobey their mother’s warnings and advises will lead to horrible, terrifying, and harsh consequences.

    • Will Willingham says

      Ah, thanks for your comment, Farah. 🙂 Not to worry, this was really meant as a tongue-in-cheek reflection on the lingering feelings I have as an adult about the very real feelings I had reading the story as a child. There’s no real movement or argument for this classic tale to be banned. 🙂

      • Farah says

        Oh, okay 😀
        But it felt like an argument to me hehe.
        Again, stories like these give people different perspectives and point of views. And I know and understand that you had to show everyone what you didn’t like about the Tale and what you though about as a child.

Trackbacks

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