The Complete Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne

(hb; 1926)

Review:

Wondrous collection of stories centering around Pooh and his friends – Christopher Robin, his lovingly corrective human friend; Piglet, timorous and true; Eeyore the melancholic gray donkey; Tigger, the bouncy tiger; Kanga and her baby, Roo.

The tone of the tales is gentle and charming – for example, when honey-loving Pooh and Piglet track an unseen never-described Woozle, whose exponential tracks circle around a tree; or when Eeyore, depressed, loses his tail, and Pooh and Piglet set out to find it. Other tales involve Pooh and the others trying to trick forest newcomers Kanga and her pouch-baby Roo into leaving, and Christopher Robin and the gang going on an “expotition” to an imaginary North Pole.

I read these stories as a child, and they were great then; they’re just as great now.

Followed by the anthology The House at Pooh Corner.