Those of a certain age will recall having spent hours reading to smaller people, with a mixture of boredom, fascination, and amusement, the illustrated stories of Beatrix Potter (1866–1943). But for the children listening and looking, the impact of these beast fables—about the doings of Peter Rabbit, Jeremy Fisher, and Benjamin Bunny, among others—will likely have been more profound than any reading that came later, especially if accompanied by the stories of Potter’s English fellow travelers from about the same period: A. A. Milne with Winnie the Pooh and Kenneth Grahame with Wind in the Willows.