"One day Esmerelda had three sweet little kittens...", 1 Mar. 2016

When Peter and Lotta decide to give a 'spare' kitten to the local washerwoman, who could have guessed it could lead to such an adventure? Ending up miles from home, losing their clothes when they go swimming and finding themselves at a circus...
Not quite got the magic of Peter & Lotta's Christmas, but still has really engaging paintings (and wonderful silhouettes on the opposite pages - I loved the one of two dogs investigating a hedgehog!) ( )

Peter and Lotta's Adventure (published in the original Swedish as Petter och Lotta på äventyr) is the third of five picture-books featuring the same family group - the first two being Aunt Green, Aunt Brown and Aunt Lavender and Aunt Brown's Birthday, the subsequent two being Uncle Blue's New Boat and Peter and Lotta's Christmas - but is one of only two that are available from my library. Sadly, this means that I will have to do without (for now) the story of how Peter and Lotta first came to stay with their three maiden aunts, in the house next door to Uncle Blue.

This installment of the family saga follows Peter and Lotta as they set out, in response to Uncle Blue's maxim that nasty people can be made good through kindness, to do a special good deed. Of course, we all know what the road to hell is paved with, and predictably, Peter and Lotta's gift of some cakes and a little kitten to short-tempered Wendy (an older woman who once cared for them?), leads them into a most unexpected day-long outing. Playing with the miller's children, losing their clothing in the forest (haha!), and attending the fair despite Uncle Blue's explicit prohibition against it, they spend a day being very 'naughty' indeed! Luckily, when all is explained to the aunts and uncle - who come into the story again just as Peter and Lotta are riding a trained bear - an understanding of their intentions averts the threatened birch-switch beating...

An amusing story that really appealed to me - how likely is it that a contemporary children's book would feature two young protagonists who end up stark naked in the forest, and must be rescued by a friendly woodcutter? - and also made me think about the importance of considering the child's point of view, in judging behavior, Peter and Lotta's Adventure is a book I highly recommend to young readers, and to their adult caregivers. I really appreciated the fact that, once he understood that Peter and Lotta were trying to live up to his own teaching, Uncle Blue tempered his anger with understanding, and confined himself to advising them to seek help, the next time they wanted to perform good deeds. I also - as always - loved the illustrations, which had that inimitable Beskow charm! Now, if only I could lay hands on the first two in this series... ( )