Becoming Beatrix The Life of Beatrix Potter and the World of Peter Rabbit

Beatrix Potter forged her own creative path to independence, fame, and financial success.
 
Peter Rabbit, Hunca Munca, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Squirrel Nutkin, Jemima Puddle-Duck—many readers are familiar with the animal characters created by British author and illustrator Beatrix Potter. But she was so much more than a painter of watercolor bunnies in little blue jackets or ducks waddling about in bonnets and shawls. She was a natural scientist, mycologist, environmentalist, preservationist, farmer, and expert sheep breeder. Beatrix Potter was a woman ahead of her time, making her own decisions and handling her own business affairs despite living in a Victorian society that was unaccustomed to unmarried women doing so.
 
Becoming Beatrix covers Potter’s early life and influences, artistic work, fascination with animals and the natural sciences, and interest and research in fungi, as well as her writing and illustration journey and her later years as a wife, farmer, businesswoman, and conservationist. 
 
This is the story of Beatrix beyond the bunnies.
 

Amy M. O’Quinn is a former teacher and the author of Nikola Tesla for Kids and Marie Curie for Kids. She is also a freelance educational writer who has contributed to Jack and Jill, Learning Through History, Guideposts for Kids, Highlights for Children, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, and Homeschooling Today. She lives with her family in south Georgia.