The Tale Of Hill Top Farm: The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter

Rating:
Summary: Animal Lovers will delight in this gentle mystery
Review: Beatrix Potter is the heroine of this mystery, but not in the way that is popular lately: famous historical or fictional person is secretly a great detective. No, in this gentle mystery, Albert mixes fact with fiction and in telling of Miss Potter's first visit to Hill Top Farm as owner. There is no gruesome murder, no horrid secrets, no fearsome villain. Instead, there are a few missing items in the village of Near Sawrey that bring a ripple of disturbance to their (mostly) peaceful village. Miss Potter is not the detective, she doesn't seek out to find the missing items, nor does she use any deductive skills to solve the mysteries. She is merely the central point around which the story moves.

The thing that turns this from just the average village story, sprinkled with domestic mystery, to a delightful and charming story is the animals. Miss Potter brings here hedgehog, two bunnies and mouse with her. Also, the village has quite a cast of cats and dogs. What's even better-they talk! Not to humans, of course, but to each other. There conversations are recorded in italics, so the reader knows immediately which species is communicating. Albert uses it to make several amusing scenes where the animals are trying to tell the humans something, only to be told to stop meowing, or that there's no more fish, or that if they stop that noise they'll have to go outside. How shocked the village residents would be to discover that their pets made great detectives!

Another feature that makes this book so interesting is Miss Potter herself. Albert gives the reader glimpses of Miss Potters biography that made me sincerely want to read more. Luckily, Albert included a biographical not at the end, following Potter's life up to the point when the Hill Top Farm visit took place. I was interested enough, though, to want to know of Miss Potter, of what happens next, of when she does finally move in to Hill Top Farm. I was inspired to re-read Miss Potter's tales, as well, from the many mentions made of them.

I've used the word already, but "gentle" seems the best way to describe The Tale of Hill Top Farm. Pastoral, perhaps would also give the right impression; it is an escape from telephones and traffic and tv (and murder mysteries) to a slower time, when the loss of the Parish Register is a dreadful thing. Animal lovers will enjoy this book, though it might not be quite as satisfying to mystery lovers. Personally, I'm looking forward to the next of "The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter".

Rating:
Summary: Blended History and Very Imaginative Fiction
Review: Beatrix Potter wrote such delightful stories and created such interesting characters that Ms. Albert has decided to bring them together in this the first of a series of mystery books. This is not a vicious and nasty mystery book. Indeed how can it be when the amateur detective (Beatrix Potter) has help in solfing the case from Tom Thumb Mouse, and Josey and Mopsy Rabbit.

The story is an interesting mix of truth and very imaginative fiction. The truth is that Beatrix Potter did indeed buy Hill Top Farm in 1905, not a common thing for a lady to do in that period. In fact you can visit the house. When she died, she left it to the British National Trust with the proviso that it be kept exactly as she left it, complete with her furniture and china. For more information, just do a Google search.

It's not unlikely that she may have talked to her mouse and rabbit creations. But it's pretty unlikely that they proviced much conversation in the other direction.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book
Review: One of the best by this always intriguing author. In the costumes of 100 years ago, Beatrix Potter grieves for an old love and finds that the greatest love of all comes from loving oneself within. A motley crew of animals aid her in her quest for self-realization. A missing painting case is brought to a successful conclusion. Seven more books are expected to follow this well-researched placement. Once you get started with one, you can't help it, you must follow this Texas author's trail wherever she decides to lead one, for she is the Pied Piper of literature.

Rating:
Summary: fabulous historical fictional
Review: The inhabitants of Near Sawrey in England's Lake District are agog because outsider Beatrix Potter has bought Hill Top Farm out of royalties she received for her popular books. Beatrix seeks a new start in life because her believed recently died one month after their engagement. While recovering, she also needs to hide from her overbearing parents who see her as a servant and lady of the manor when her mom is ill, which is often.

Her first impression of the village is that it is quiet and its residents seem contented. As she becomes acquainted with the villagers, Beatrix realizes gossip spreads faster than the wind so that a newspaper is unnecessary to keep up with the day's happenings. The longer she stays in Near Sawrey, the more Beatrix gets caught up in the daily flow of life here. Soon she tries to figure out where a missing painting, The Parish Register and the School, could have gone and who purloined them.

THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM enables readers to obtain a deep look at the early twentieth century author who wrote the whimsical hopping The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter. Ms. Potter's works are similar to that of Rita Mae Brown with animals talking to one another and influencing human behavior. There is a historical essence to the tale so that fans feel they are in a quaint English village circa 1905 with a star breaking the taboo of a woman alone moving in with the locals. Susan Wittig Albert provides a fabulous historical fictional tale.

Harriet Klausner