Petra Waging war on feral fowl via mozzie screens ’s review of Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh, #1) > Likes and Comments

Poetry, wit and craftsmanship wrapped up in tenderness. I adore A.A. Milne...even more than Beatrix Potter! ;P

I know that one by heart - still.
That's got me bouncing out of bed for my coffee, toast and butter - I'm with the king - there's nothing else quite like butter.

Fionnuala wrote: "I know that one by heart - still.
That's got me bouncing out of bed for my coffee, toast and butter - I'm with the king - there's nothing else quite like butter."

Which is your favourite one?

I think mine is James James Weatherby George Dupree - the one who said to his mother that she must "never go down to the end of the town without consulting ME." (She got 'lost' anyway. More like ran away from her child.)

Dolors wrote: "Poetry, wit and craftsmanship wrapped up in tenderness. I adore A.A. Milne...even more than Beatrix Potter! ;P"

You know I never took to Beatrix Potter and never read them to my son either. I think it was probably I wasn't read them myself.

My favourite? I can't think although the James James one is good - great name to roll about on your tongue. Half way down the stair? That just popped into my head. I liked that one - I lived on our stairs- jumping games, dolls' house, reading place - and I was the middle one in the family....

Halfway up the stairs is the stair where I sit
there isn't any other stair quite like it

Part of a family tradition of AA Milne and lovely :)

You living in London and having a bookshop always reminds me of 84 Charing Cross Road.

Lovely

Goosebumps! I remember that one fondly from my childhood. :-)

Nigel wrote: "Halfway up the stairs is the stair where I sit"

It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!

I had a windowseat at my grandmother's, hidden behind long velvet curtains it wasn't anywhere either, it was my 'stair'. All children need a place like that.

Mummy wrote: "Nigel wrote: "Halfway up the stairs is the stair where I sit"

It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!

I had a windowseat at my grandmother's, hidden behind long velvet curtains it ..."

Lovely memory and I so agree - classic example of how important reading is to & for little ones

I adored reading AA Milne when I was a kid. We read him to our kids when they were little. Now I'm looking forward to reading him to my grandson. However, since I found out about the difficult relationship between Milne and his son - the real Christopher Robin - the books have become tinged with sadness. Just a little, but it's there.

"It's not at the bottom and it's not at the top so this is the stair where I always stop." With that sentence I clearly see the stairs of a house I last lived in 60 years ago.

I think that everyone who read those first poems, When Were Very Young and Now We are Six remembers some of them forever.

Someone (and I think it may have been C.S. Lewis) said that a good children's book isn't really a children's book at all---it will appeal to adults too (or something like that). I absolutely love the sly humor Milne exhibits in the Pooh books. When I was very young (so, in the late 1950s--early 1960s), we had an old LP with some of Milne's poems made into songs. I can still hear, in my head, the one about the king wanting a "little bit of butter for my bread". Another I remember from that collection is a poem/song about sitting halfway up the stairs. I wish I still had that LP. I don't even know who sang the songs.

They sly humour wasn't captured by Disney at all.

The last few lines of the stair poem were sheer genius:

Halfway down the stairs
is a stair
where i sit.
there isn't any
other stair
quite like
it.
i'm not at the bottom,
i'm not at the top;
so this is the stair
where
I always
stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up
And it isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head.
It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!

Was this the music, http://www.queerradio.org/David_Tomli...

Oh my goodness, yes! You're a genius! It was the David Tomlinson "When We Were Very Young". I doubt I'd have ever found it on my own. So that LP made its way to Kentucky in the 1950s. Imagine that!

I think you can listen to it here. I just googled it and ended up on a slightly-interesting site of Milne fanatics.

Thanks so much for your help. Knowing that the singer was David Tomlinson is key. I wouldn't at all have remembered that detail. I also didn't realize that he was the same guy who played "Mr. Banks" in the Disney "Mary Poppins".

I can't hardly remember Mary Poppins!

I was (and am) a huge Julie Andrews fan, so I remember "Mary Poppins". As much as I liked the film, the books are vastly better (as always). I read them to my (now 35-year-old) daughter when she was young and she sent a letter to P.L. Travers, who must have been very old by then. Ms. Travers sent her a postcard in reply on which she had drawn a tiny cat. It is now one of my daughter's treasured possessions.

What a lovely memento.

What happy memories of my own childhood and then my parenthood. Thanks for posting this, Petra. I love this one, and James James Weatherby George Dupree, and The Stair and so many of the others.

Cecily wrote: "What happy memories of my own childhood and then my parenthood. Thanks for posting this, Petra. I love this one, and James James Weatherby George Dupree, and The Stair and so many of the others."

I loved JJWG Dupree. The mother escaping from her tyrannical child and King John puting up a poster offering a reward for anyone seeing this runaway mother. The way she was drawn I always thought she was probably just late back from tea at Fortnum and Mason.

Always brings a smile to my face. Especially when remembering reading The House At Pooh Corner to a friend. Thanks x

Jonathan wrote: "Always brings a smile to my face. Especially when remembering reading The House At Pooh Corner to a friend. Thanks x"

I bet the Disney version doesn't bring such a smile. That whole series of films was exploitation of bears and small children.

I adored these books as a child! I love them still!

Ivonne wrote: "I adored these books as a child! I love them still!"

I wonder if there is anything modern that is as good an inroduction to poetry as A.A. Milne.

Beautiful review, and lovely comments too, Petra. 🌺

I'm not surprised you have won the stick race, sticking to reality usually helps. 😀 Glad to have you back here. 🧡

I have never read these books, but they sound really special. ♥

Maria wrote: "Beautiful review, and lovely comments too, Petra. 🌺"

Thank you. I have great friends!

My granny always read us AA Milne when we were staying. The editions were the ones she bought for my dad when he was little. My son in turn has loved them too. The King's Breakfast is truly great, and I love James, James, Morrison, Morrison..., but do you remember King John's Christmas?

'King John was not a good man...

And, Oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all,
Bring me a big, red, India-rubber ball!'

Art wrote: "I'm not surprised you have won the stick race, sticking to reality usually helps. 😀 Glad to have you back here. 🧡"

I liked winning Pooh sticks because I am only 5'2 and my partner is 6' and so when we play shuffleboard his arm goes half the length of the table and I lose! Mini-golf, it's the same, I am at such a disadvantage (but I won once). Pooh sticks is all chance, no way of planning, no skill, but great anticipation and I won!

A classic!

Kealyn wrote: "I have never read these books, but they sound really special. ♥"

They are very British books. It is the same author who wrote the Winnie the Pooh books. In the US, Winnie the Pooh is a completely different character from the book. It's worth getting hold of the originals.

I'm an old lady know, and I love these books as much as I did as a child.

Many years ago, I read a book called "The Pooh Perplex." It critiqued the Winnie the Pooh books in the style of some leading literary critics of that era (ca. 1960s) Very funny, and worth reading if still in print. :)

Liz wrote: "The King's Breakfast is truly great, and I love James, James, Morrison, Morrison..., but do you remember King John's Christmas? ..."

I remember some of it, but I never liked it, I always felt he was thanking Father Christmas for the children's rubber ball he was about to keep (steal). Which I suppose why he wasn't a good man. However, on rereading it, the poem doesn't end with him being a good man either but I didn't get that when I was little. I like this:

And, round about December,
The cards upon his shelf
Which wished him lots of Christmas cheer,
And fortune in the coming year,
Were never from his near and dear,
But only from himself.

Gary wrote: "Many years ago, I read a book called "The Pooh Perplex." It critiqued the Winnie the Pooh books in the style of some leading literary critics of that era (ca. 1960s) Very funny, and worth reading i..."

The same author did a follow up book in 2003 called Postmodern Pooh. I haven't read either!

Both those Pooh literary criticism books (by Frederick Crews) are fantastic. Not only brilliant satire of various critics or theoretical schools (whose writings, by the time of the later volume, had started to seem like satire themselves) but also very insightful and fun regarding the Pooh stories. If you have ever been subjected to po-faced, theory-driven, jargon-stuffed literary criticism or you just appreciate wit and Winnie the Pooh I think you will enjoy them.