Disney Storybook Artists

Roo refuses to take a nap because FOMO! But his friends all assure him they will just be doing boring chores. And, gee willikers a good nap may just give Roo the energy he needs to win the big sack race later in the book.

Heavy-handed nap propaganda for parents whose tots just won't settle down.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is show more that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... ) show less

I was in Half-Price books today and since I'm in the middle of my Pooh project, I couldn't resist buying a little something from their Pooh shelf. Appropriately enough, this used book was about the old adage, "one man's trash is another man's treasure." Less appropriately, this trash proved to be more trash than treasure.

The story lacked the humor, energy, and charm that the best Pooh stories have (I'm looking at you Milne and Zoehfeld). It dully traced falling dominoes as one friend's show more repurposing of a secondhand item resulted in another friend repurposing something, and another, and so on, until a sedate tea party and a couple bad poems put an end to it all.

The only value my daughter and I got from the book was realizing how much the artist seemed to dislike drawing Winnie the Pooh. We laughed as we counted up that two-thirds of the illustrations have him facing away from the camera, so to speak. Of the remaining third, he is looking down in three-quarter or nearly full profile; not once is his face drawn straight on.

A sad little addition to our bookshelf.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... ) show less

My favorite Pooh movies are the ones that actually adapt sections of A. A. Milne's original book, but this one is actually pretty darn good despite being a mostly original work. It has a nice lesson about prejudice, xenophobia, and preconceptions, and Lumpy (a/k/a Heffridge Trumpler Brompet Heffalump IV) is a delightful addition to the canon. Pooh's barely in it, since it is really a Roo movie, but when he does show up he's adorable in his little aviator's cap. The film is a good follow-up show more to the terrific Piglet's Big Movie, with the same screenwriter and more catchy songs by Carly Simon.

This third adaptation I own is by Apple Jordan and the Disney Storybook Artists. It's a Step Into Reading book so it has been drastically simplified, but incredibly it still manages to tell the whole movie quite effectively in less than 30 sentences by honing in on the "just like me" theme.

As always, it's funny to see the publisher keep reusing the same illustrations that can be seen in all the other Pooh's Heffalump Movie adaptations I'm reading this week. They must have had a studio of artists churning out these images on spec and then bundling them up for the writers and/or editors to pick and choose which ones best inspired or fit the text of their adaptation. Is this like an attraction at Disney World? Watch the artists in a fishbowl drawing Pooh picture after Pooh picture?

FOR REFERENCE:

Pooh's Heffalump Movie was directed by Frank Nissen from a screenplay by Brian Hohlfeld and Evan Spiliotopoulos, based on the characters created by by A. A. Milne. show less

This is the third of the My Very First Winnie the Pooh books I ordered in special from Australia for Christmas, and boy is it giving me some regrets.

Rabbit's titular bad mood is caused by his garden vegetables turning out poorly: the carrots are shrunken the lettuce is wilted, the "raddish [sic]" he just bit into is too hot and spicy, and the turnips never grew at all.

After imagining that Rabbit's bad mood is a storm behind his eyes to be calmed or a cloud over his head to be blown away, show more Piglet and Pooh fetch some friends to fix Rabbit's mood. Owl and Tigger quickly start gaslighting him, positing that Rabbit forgot to water or even plant the seeds. And when they have Rabbit on the ropes and starting to doubt himself, they switch stories to an excess of rain ruining the garden. That's the ticket!

Once again, the art seems to have been produced in France as Pooh lives under the name "M. Sanders" (for Monsieur Sanders) instead of the "Mr. Sanders" (for Mister Sanders) found in E. H. Shepard's illustrations. And apparently, the French artists, the American writer and the Australian editors do not know the difference between moles and gophers, as Gopher will attest below:


https://i.imgur.com/WvGN2yC.png

This egregious offense brings my rating down to one star. And don't get me started on the gibberish printed on the last page when Eeyore suddenly shows up to share his previously unsought insight.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... ) show less