When We Were Very Young

Over three hundred books into my Pooh Project, and I have yet to read any of the original Milne books? Oops. Well, here we go!

Unfortunately, this one is all poetry, and I'm not a fan of poetry. At least it's short.

For me, Milne's poems work best when their from the perspective of a child exerting their will or independence, rebelling against the dominance and stupidity of adults: "Politeness," "Rice Pudding," "Independence," "Market Square." The best of these and the jauntiest to read out loud is "Disobedience" with James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree and his straying mother.

Winnie the Pooh makes an appearance under the alias of Edward Bear with a reflection on body image that barely prepares one for the greatness to show more come.

(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

Although this book is contained within the initial Winnie-The-Pooh canon, it is not a book of stories about the bear himself, but rather poetry. Only one poem in the book is truly about Mr. Edward Bear, but the book itself reads very much as a love letter to the young Christopher Robin and the time in which it was written. The poems are about a trip to the zoo, the wilds around them, just-so stories of the animals about and the beautiful flowers.

The book itself is like a celebration of spring time. It's nearly pagan or purely Romantic writing in the subjects it contains. It would be nearly impossible to read it without being touched, or at least slightly moved by the contents. There's a keen nostalgia throughout it all, but show more nevertheless it is still very much a thing of beauty and to be treasured. It's hard to imagine such stories being told now, and I feel its important that we keep at least part of us able to appreciate such a perspective and recognize it. Don't all of us miss the time we could see a brownie behind a curtain, or catch a dormouse sleeping within the flowers? I still keenly remember once coming across a fox sleeping in our garden and watching it until it woke..

Isn't that its own kind of magic? show less

I know and like these poems. Unfortunately the Open Media ebook I got has _horrible_ formatting - they maintained all the pictures (yay!) but the text is often split by the pictures, in ways that lose a line or two. In order to read several of the poems I had to scroll back and forth and back and... At best, this is a distraction; at worst - I only knew some of them were missing lines because I know the poems. A pity - a poor edition of a usually (mildly) enjoyable book.

Politeness
If people ask me,
I always tell them:
"Quite well, thank you, I'm very glad to say."
If people ask me,
I always answer,
"Quite well, thank you, how are you today?"
I always answer,
I always tell them,
If they ask me
Politely. . . .
BUT SOMETIMES
I wish
That they wouldn't.

I had this read to me many decades ago, and yet the verse of Milne, along with the illustrations by Ernest Shepard, still are fresh and wondrous. I'm still looking for the brownie behind my great big curtain!

I grew up with Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin and to this day I cannot read the last chapter without crying: " with his eyes on the world Christopher Robin put out a hand and felt for Pooh's paw. "Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnesstly, "if I --- if I'm not quite ---" he stopped and tried again --- "Pooh, whatever happens, you will understand, won't you?" And wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on top of the forest, a little bear will always be waiting. I absolutely LOVE Milne's writing and am so grateful that he created such a wonderful little world in the woods. I can read his writings, including the poetry, over and over again.

Before there was Winnie-the-Pooh, there was Mr. Edward Bear, a rotund teddy bear who was proud of his stature. Meet him and many other lovable characters in this verse collection that launched A. A. Milne's career as a children's author and led to the creation of his novels about Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin.

Full of whimsy, humor, and imagination, these children's poems tell of visits to the zoo and Buckingham Palace, the romance between Little Bo Peep and Little Boy Blue, the shenanigans of peculiar characters, quiet afternoons in nature, and more.