The Tale of Hill Top Farm

This is a lovely book for children. My kids and I loved reading through it. It is also beautifully hardbound.

I freely confess to having always had a weakness for books with talking animals, beginning with my childhood reading of Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Willows. Both are still favorites, along with many others, and still read frequently. So I was predisposed to like this series and, thankfully, it did not disappoint. The author is familiar with the time period and the life of Beatrix Potter, and both are treated with respect and a welcome absence of anachronisms. The animals are charming and gracefully woven into these simple stories, while having a critical part to play. If I have a criticism, and it's a minor one, the narrative tone is a bit arch and sometimes has the effect of assuming the reader's agreement where that assumption might be a bit presumptuous. This minor point aside, I've read the entire series with pleasure more than once, and that, in my case, is high praise.

Lovely story

Not a book found readily in the UK. This copy had to come from the USA. It's pure fiction but written in a delightful and gentle way which conjures up the world of Beatrix Potter. If you're fed up of books which dwell on the darker side of life, these tales are a good antidote.

Wenn ich nicht die anderen beiden Serien der Autorin gekannt hätte, hätte ich wohl nach dem ersten Kapitel aufgegeben, aber da sie eigentlich ganz tolle Krimis schreibt, habe ich mich weitergekämpft. Es hat sich gelohnt. Sicher etwas anders als man sonst von ihr gewohnt ist, doch gut ausgeführt, die Charaktere mit einer angenehmen Tiefe versehen, ist diese Geschichte vielversprechend für die weiteren Bände der Reihe. Der Anfang war schwer, deshalb einen Stern Abzug, doch der Rest las sich gut.

Good.