Peter Rabbit
The Spiel — what are you watching
The TV series is not quite what you might expect if you are loyal to the original Beatrix Potter collection of stories. Each of the books focuses on a character, such as my daughter’s favourite — The Tale of Samuel Whiskers, which tells a tale of a nasty fat rat who tries to eat poor Tom Kitten. What the creators of the TV show have done, is take the books as leverages for developing the show’s characters of Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, and Mr Tod to name a few.
In each episode, three best friends, Peter, Benjamin and Lily Bobtail (more on her later) have to overcome some kind of danger — whether it’s being chased out of Mr McGregor's garden, not being eaten by the sly fox Mr Tod or running away from the moody Tommy Brock the Badger.
❤ The heart ❤ how it makes you feel with your child
So you are a new parent to a pre-school child scanning CBeebies, a channel you can trust and see Peter Rabbit. A name synonymous with the British Childhood Literature Canon and press > play. What you see next is a computer animated graphic of a childhood memory with characters you never heard of such as Lily Bobtail and iridescent colours — not the delicately illustrated books of your memory. This makes the show slightly jarring to watch as an adult.
From memory there’s Jemima Puddleduck, Mrs Tiddlewinke, Flopsy. So WTF is Lily all about? Did I forget a bunny? As an inquiring parent, I looked it up, Yup, Lily IS new. She is there, I assume to present a female strong (highly) intelligent character to match up to Peter’s mischief. For me as a working Mother of a young girl, I witness what often happens in real life, where a woman is the brains behinds a male’s glory. I am not an angry feminist, even my husband commented on this. As a British viewer, the countryside is pretty nice to watch — researching this I found out it’s based around the Lake District where Potter spent most of her adult life. There you have learnt something reading this today.
The head — What can you learn?
The show for a child is ultimately about friendship. The trials and tribulations and teamwork that the central characters demonstrate throughout each season can help model what friendship and teamwork can do for you. There are some seriously dubious moral dilemmas in this show as parent. The basic premise of most episodes involves Peter Rabbit, Benjamin and Lily stealing radishes from Mr McGregor's garden. “Radish raid” is a common cry from the Rabbits. How do we tell our children not to take their friends toys, when there is an entire preschool children’s series focusing on taking someone else’s food. I can’t answer that.
The Basics:
Top line overview: Three best (bunny) friends run around the countryside eating radishes and avoiding angry farmers and foxes
Where to find it? Amazon Prime, CBeebies, Netflix
Age Range — 2.5–5
Style: CGI animation
