Imagine a small brown rabbit. He’s wearing a soft blue jacket. It’s Peter Rabbit in Mr. McGregor’s garden. You’ve entered the wonderful world of Beatrix Potter. This year marks the 150th anniversary of her birth.

Helen Beatrix Potter was born in 1866. As a girl, Beatrix kept a diary. She wrote and drew in it. Sometimes she was funny: She claimed lettuce made rabbits sleepy. Sometimes she was serious: “Behave yourself and never mind the rest,” she advised.

Often Beatrix drew pictures. She liked to draw nature. As a child she studied book illustration. Illustration is drawing pictures to go along with words.

Beatrix noticed everything around her. Animals, leaves, rocks, fossils. She sketched them all. One of her favorite things to draw was fungi. Fungi are plants. They live on dead things. Mold and mushrooms are both fungi. Some of Beatrix’s fungi drawings were used in science books.

Beatrix loved fables and fairy tales. She was creative. She made up her own fairy-like stories about the world around her.

Beatrix also came up with her own art style. She drew pictures of her many pets—mice, kittens, rabbits. She made them wearing aprons, coats, and hats.

Sometimes Beatrix wrote letters to children. Her letters were full of sketches. One letter went to a little boy named Noel. It told a story of “four little rabbits, and their names were—Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter.”

Sound familiar? That letter became Beatrix’s best-known book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Beatrix Potter’s paintings are charming. They also show great attention to detail. Words and illustration are equal in importance in Beatrix’s stories. She cared about word meanings and sounds. She carefully placed words and pictures on every page.

Beatrix used her talents. She gave readers a great gift. God is honored when we try to use our talents well. Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord.”