The Tale of Ginger and Pickles

When a dog and a cat open the doors of a general store, money goes out the window, in this classic children’s story from the author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit. The Tale of Ginger and Pickles is a cautionary tale for children about how not to run a business. Ginger, an orange tomcat, and Pickles, a terrier, want to make their village store a success. Selling pocket-handkerchiefs, sugar, snuff, and galoshes seems like a good plan, and the local animals are happy to shop there, even though the mice are rather afraid of Ginger and the rabbits are always a bit frightened of Pickles. But all goes well until the proprietors start extending unlimited credit to their customers—and find themselves over their whiskers in debt . . . “Potter’s tales have been consistently popular with adults, as well as children, since The Tale of Peter Rabbit was published in 1902 when she was 36 years old. This is not just because they feature adorable creatures in harrowing situations; her talking-animal stories also comment on the era’s class politics, gender roles, economics and domestic life. . . . In the celebration of laissez faire capitalism that is The Tale of Ginger and Pickles, she approves of the market forces that ruin the title characters’ shop, because they didn’t run their business with intelligence . . . Potter’s vision is that nature may be Darwinian chaos but one can survive through hard work and good sense.” —BBC.com