Pooh Bear Mini-Reviews

As a special treat for myself (and to fulfill a couple of the "Reread 4 Books" requirements for the Book Bingo Reading Challenge), I'm rereading the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne.  First up:


Winnie-the-Pooh--in which we are introduced to Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, Owl (sometimes spelled WOL), Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, and--of course--Christopher Robin.  In this collection of short adventures Pooh disguises himself as a rain cloud in order to try and fool some bees into allowing him to have their honey; Pooh and Piglet try to catch a heffalump; Christopher Robin and all his friends go on an Expedition to find the North Pole; Eeyore has a birthday; and Pooh helps Christopher Robin rescue Piglet from being surrounded by water.

and then



The House at Pooh Corner--in which Tigger is added to Christopher Robin's host of friends and we discover that Tiggers (despite what they might say) don't like honey, haycorns or thistles.  Further adventures include building a house for Eeyore, rescuing Roo and Tigger from their tree-climbing adventure, a search for one of Rabbit's friends and relations named Small, playing Pooh-sticks, and the un-bouncing of Tigger.

These were wonderful books to read as a child.  I loved the magical Hundred Acre Wood where bears and piglets and rabbits and donkeys and all the other animals lived and had adventures and played with their friend Christopher Robin.  They were also wonderful books to sit down and read to my son 20 years later--and to watch the original stories with him on VHS.  I really can't figure out why so many reviewers blast the Disney version.  Disney's Pooh is far more faithful to the text than a lot of the Disney features--whole pages of dialogue are transported to the screen*.  That is one thing I noticed in this reread.  A delightful little trip down memory lane.  The books were five stars when I first read them, they were five stars when I read them to my son, and they are five stars now.

{*I am not, of course, counting any of the "spin-off" Winnie-the-Pooh stories or more modern cartoons with this "Darby" character who has taken over.  I refer to the classic Pooh stories as seen on "Wonderful World of Disney."}