A japanese translation of a booklet on Beatrix Potter's fungi watercolours - Beatrix Potter: The Unknown Years - was launched at Ambleside's Armitt Library and Museum.

The booklet accompanies a small but fascinating exhibition called Beatrix Potter through a Japanese Mirror, which compares and assesses a selection of Japanese woodblock prints expressing a love of nature with Beatrix Potter's fungi watercolours.

Over wine and sushi, chairman Vivienne Rees thanked the organisers of the Japan 2001 initiative for their financial help with the publication, and Ruriko Masaki Otsuki for her kindness in translating the work for the pleasure of doing it.

Booklet author Elizabeth Battrick said she was pleased Japanese visitors would now be able to better appreciate the Potter collection of more than 200 beautiful fungi watercolours held by the Armitt.