For the publication of A Celebration of Beatrix Potter (Warne, Nov. 1), Penguin Random House senior art director Giuseppe Castellano commissioned text and illustrations from more than 30 contemporary children’s book illustrators. Their tributes, excerpted here, provide the artists’ own spins on beloved Potter tales.

Castellano explains how the project came together: “As we know, Beatrix Potter is one of the most admired children’s book author-illustrators of all time. Her writing is a master class in cadence of language; her illustrations rival the greats. Potter was influenced by Randolph Caldecott, John Everett Millais, and John Tenniel. She, in turn, continues to influence generations of author-illustrators. And so, the idea for A Celebration started with a simple question: Wouldn’t it be great to pay tribute to her by reimagining her beloved characters and sharing our stories about her?”

To celebrate Potter’s 150th anniversary, Castellano asked a number of artists to share what Potter has meant to them. “Their unique stories and illustrations speak to her incalculable contribution to the world of children’s books,” he says. “We, the stewards of Frederick Warne & Co., feel this book is a fitting tribute to the remarkable Helen Beatrix Potter. The book is dedicated, ‘To Beatrix.’ ”


Betsy Lewin

Beatrix Potter’s book The Tale of Peter Rabbit was among my favorite picture books when I was a child. I’ve always been fond of animals, and I love the warm, endearing personalities she gave her characters. Peter Rabbit was my favorite because, like me, he was mischievous and adventuresome, sometimes finding himself in hot water.

When I grew up, I became more interested in Beatrix Potter. She was a shining example of a woman making a place for herself as an artist and author in the world of publishing at a time in history when it must have seemed all but impossible. In the 1950s it seemed all but impossible to me, but I jumped in with both feet and am both thankful and still a bit surprised that I didn’t drown.


Peggy Rathmann

Beatrix Potter’s mother allowed her daughter to keep a small zoo in her nursery. My mother, hoping that pet rodents were the key to Beatrix Potter’s success, let the five of us keep all the mice, rats, and guinea pigs we wanted.

Results were mixed. Several of us developed mouse phobias.

Mom and I, however, are still fans of Hunca Munca, the lovely mouse who stars with her husband in The Tale of Two Bad Mice. In fact, our only issue with the book is its title: How could such a sweet mother mouse be “bad”?

Here is Hunca Munca with her children at a dollhouse birthday party.

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Chuck Groenink

What I remember best about Beatrix Potter’s stories are all the fantastically cozy little homes she gave her characters—from Jeremy Fisher’s splishy-splashy little cottage by the water to the mice hidden away under the floorboards decorating their rooms with stolen furniture from dollhouses. Each had a perfect little space of his or her own. Reading those stories, there was nothing I wanted more than to be able to visit all those abodes.


Matthew Forsythe

We love Jemima because she is a duck who won’t accept her station. She is impelled to live her own life and not give in to others’ expectations. She is the Emma Bovary of children’s literature.


Paul O. Zelinsky

I’ve always liked little things. So did Beatrix Potter: Mice and bugs, squirrels, and baby rabbits populate the tiny books she made. In her created world, the characters are part farmland animals and part English country folk. But the lives of these creatures are no safer than those of their real-life animal counterparts. If you’re a rabbit, the farmer will try to catch and skin you for fur. If you’re a duck, you risk being eaten. Beatrix Potter has no time for sentiment: Things are what they are and we must carry on with the story. Still, the small size of her books and the light touch of her watercolor illustrations somehow lighten the stakes. And her matter-of-fact tone in the face of animal disaster comes across, to me, as terribly funny, in a special, British way.