bilbopooh's Full Review: Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck: W...
One of the many enjoyable elements of Miss Potter, the 2006's lovely biopic of Beatrix Potter starring Renee Zellweger, was how we saw her conjure up some of her most famous characters, who then sprang to animated life on the screen. One of the most prominent of these was Jemima Puddle-duck, a spirited white duck with a kind heart but dim wits.
Jemima shows up first in The Tale of Tom Kittern, but she has the starring role in The Tale of Jemima Puddle-duck, in which she is fed up with the farmer's wife for always having the "superfluous hen" hatch her ducklings. No matter how well she hides her eggs in the barnyard, they are found and carried away, so Jemima decides to seek nesting ground elsewhere.
At first it seems great fortune when she meets a gentleman in fancy duds who offers her a room in his summer home. Though it seems odd that he has collected so many feathers, they are perfect for her nest, so she settles in and lays her eggs, returning to the farm daily until she is ready to sit on them. It's a nice arrangement. But although Potter never comes right out and says it in the text, the illustrations clearly show that Jemima's benefactor is a fox, and foxes are known for their cleverness and their fondness for the taste of chickens and ducks. How will Jemima get herself out of this predicament when she doesn't even suspect any fowl play?
This story is on the long side, with several paragraphs per page and a number of sophisticated words like "conscientious," "convenient," "suffocating," "alighted" and the aforementioned "superfluous". The prose has a wonderful storytellerish quality about it, and the illustrations are marvelously detailed. In some of them, Jemima wears a pink shawl and blue bonnet, which are as readily associated with her as the blue coat is with Peter Rabbit. The pictures are especially important once the fox enters the story, since what the reader sees is so different from what naive Jemima sees.
Jemima is a well-developed character, and she holds readers' attention well. As in many Potter stories, the happy ending is tempered with some degree of unpleasantness, but Jemima emerges from her dangerous situation much better than she could have, thanks to the efforts of some noble friends. Potter's point here seems to be that one must exercise caution in trusting strangers, and also that the rules set before us by our guardians sometimes make a lot more sense than we are willing to admit. I would say the main aim of the story, however, is just to be an entertaining tale, and that it certainly is, despite a bittersweet conclusion, so waddle on over to the nearest library and check out The Tale of Jemima Puddle-duck.
Subscribe to More Reviews on Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck: With the Easy-To-Read Little Engine That Could Get the RSS Feed: - Add to My Yahoo!: - Add to Google Homepage:
Subscribe to bilbopooh's Reviews: Get the RSS Feed: - Add to My Yahoo!: - Add to Google Homepage:
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2008 Shopping.com, Inc.