Finally! You CAN go into Mr. McGregor’s garden!
Last weekend, community families were invited to spend a day with Peter Rabbit, literature’s most enduring radish-eater. This was our first foray into a Saturday programming specifically aimed at children ages 2-6, and oh my goodness was it a rousing success. We were also delighted to be joined by our friends from the West Trenton Garden Club, who you will meet a little later in this post!
While there was plenty to learn about Beatrix Potter at the event, the main attraction was a definitely the dress up cottage and planting garden, designed with a charming Potter-esque vibe in mind. Heading over to the cottage, we had an outdoor tea garden…
And just a few steps inside is the kitchen! This was a cute wooden set we scored inexpensively online, and removed the peg legs to make it extra stable for young enthusiastic chefs.
Next to the kitchen set were three baskets of dress up clothes. You can see a few combinations below…we went full Potter with aprons, bonnets, vests, straw hats, shawls, and a dashing tam o’ shanter!
Upstairs was a cozy bed (a giant floor pillow covered with a quilt and bolster):
Meanwhile, over in the garden, we had two “plantable” vegetable beds, garden carts, a well-stocked produce stand, and a trio of bunny bouncers!
The vegetable beds were constructed out of long cardboard boxes. We bought dozens of toy foam bricks, then laid the bricks on top of short pieces of toilet paper tubes that were in turn hot glued to the bottom of the cardboard box. The toilet paper tubes elevated the bricks just enough to allow 7.5″ fabric carrots to be “planted” in the garden bed. Below you can see one of the bricks removed to reveal a toilet paper tube support:
And here’s a close up of that adorable produce cart!
For quieter activities, we had a coloring table with sheets from “Paint Like Peter Rabbit,” a free Cotsen publication that features illustrations reproduced from Peter Rabbit’s Painting Book, an item we have in our special collections (Frederick Warne & Co., ca. 1917 Cotsen 29861).
We also had a sweet little reading nook with a number of Beatrix Potter books to enjoy:
Adventurous budding ornithologists could scan the gallery for garden birds of England, eight of which we posted around the event floor:
I mentioned them in the introduction, but now it is my distinct pleasure to present Barbara Lear and Anne Skalka from the West Trenton Garden Club! These two wonderful ladies brought their enthusiasm, expertise, and boundless energy to the event, teaching kids about how plants go from seed to snack, including a display of sprouting avocado trees! They had plenty of dirt and pots on hand so kids could start little gardens of their own. They were absolutely amazing, and we appreciate them so much!
The Cotsen Children’s Library has a number of Beatrix Potter treasures in its special collections, and we wanted to use this opportunity to educate young visitors about these fantastic items. We’ll begin with an original stuffed Jemima Puddle-Duck (which I posted about here on the blog).
In honor of this terrific original textile, two library staff members – Wind Cowles, Associate Dean for Data, Research, and Teaching; and Sarah Reiff Conell, Research Data Management Specialist – crafted a needle felt rabbit family for visitors to enjoy!
In addition to the Jemima stuffed animal, Cotsen has a number of Beatrix Potter’s family photographs, including Beatrix with her beloved pets. We put together an exhibit wall of eight photos from the collection. Here’s one of my personal favorites:
From the Cotsen Children’s Library collections, Princeton University Library
We also have some of Beatrix Potter’s natural history drawings and picture letters she sent to children. Many of those letters became the famous books we know today! We put together an event table with a display of her drawings and picture letters, with plenty of paper and pens on hand for children to try drawing and writing their own.
Almost all the photos you’ve seen on this post were taken before the event, when everything was nice and tidy. But then the doors opened and it was a massive flood of happy bouncing gardeners for 4 hours straight. We had a HUGE turnout. Honestly, Katie and I barely managed to snap photos!
I would say that our inaugural event for younger kiddos was an unqualified success, and it was such a delight to see everyone turn out for such a classic children’s character. In their best rabbit duds no less!
Many thanks to Barbara Lear and Anne Skalka from the West Trenton Garden Club for volunteering their time and expertise! Thank you as well to Wind Cowles and Sarah Reiff Conell for your beautiful artistic needle felt creations. And finally, thank you to graduate student volunteer Shruti Sharma for helping out on such a big day!