The Tale of Oat Cake Crag

July 5, 2010
Albert's charming seventh Beatrix Potter tale (after 2009's The Tale of Applebeck Orchard) finds Beatrix at Hill Top Farm in the Lake District, where she has taken refuge from her parents, who she knows will disapprove of her secret engagement to solicitor Will Heelis just as they disapproved of her engagement six years earlier to her editor, Norman Warne, who died before the two could marry. Meanwhile, Beatrix and the local birds and animals, including a teenage dragon, must put up with "a beastly fly-swimming spluttering aeroplane" that's been careering up and down Lake Windemere. More upsetting is the serious injury to Fred L. Baum, one of the plane's developers, who's found by Rascal, a popular Jack Russell terrier, at the bottom of Oat Cake Crag. The mystery element may be mild, but Albert does a fine job of recreating the wistful, nostalgic mood of Potter's children's books.

August 1, 2010
Alberts series of mysteries set in Britains Land between the Lakes moves from strength to strength. Once again Beatrix Potter has returned to visit her farm and get a little peace and quiet. It is now March 1912, and war with Germany is looming. As a result, Winston Churchill, first lord of the admiralty, is becoming increasingly interested in flying machines, and one of his projects involves the testing of a new hydroplane on Lake Windermere, near Beatrixs farm. It seems entirely possible that one of the villagers, irate over the noise from the tests, may have taken matters in his or her own hands and attacked the funder of the project, whose body is found at the foot of Oat Cake Crag. But there are other puzzles to solve as well. Who has been writing poison-pen letters to Beatrixs friend Grace? Who is planning to marry the local vicar? What about Beatrixs own romance with Will Heelis? As always, the animals, especially Rascal the dog, Professor Galileo Newton Owl, and Thorvaald the dragon, help Beatrix solve the puzzles.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)