The eight-year-old girl leaned over her sketch pad, drawing a caterpillar as it munched on a leaf. Beatrix had spent her summer studying these tiny creatures. She knew what they ate, where they lived, and what kind of butterfly or moth each would become.

Helen Beatrix Potter grew up to become the well-known author of the Peter Rabbit books. But before she created storybook animals, she was an accomplished nature artist. In fact, she almost became a scientist instead of a storyteller.