Illustrations by Mark Burgess. With the approval and support of the Trustees of the Pooh Properties Trust and in which Winne-the-Pooh enjoys further adventures with Christopher Robin and his friends. I opened this one with some trepidation. It’s very hard to read a book which attempts to pick up and carry on another’s legacy, especially one so beloved by so many readers since their childhood- like mine. I was pleasantly surprised. The writing style and character of the stories felt very close to the original, same with the illustrations. Christopher Robin did look a bit different- but then he’s supposed to be older now- and I often felt that Pooh’s legs were a bit too scrawny, and that Roo looked rather like a stretched-out flying squirrel, but other than that it all charmed me. I just enjoyed it and forgot to be too critical. I didn’t even mind that it introduced a new character (a female otter named Lottie, just as full of herself as Owl and Rabbit, but in a different way). It’s been many years since I’ve read the originals, or I’d probably hold this to a stricter standard. (Having read some other reader’s reviews since I wrote this, I cringe a bit now. Lots of people pointed out many nuances that weren’t at all like the original characters, and I can’t believe I didn’t notice those flaws. Yikes. Now I wonder if I’ll enjoy this if I do read it a second time round, having had those things brought to my attention).
The stories are thus- a rumor goes about that Christopher Robin is back (visiting, home from boarding school) and they all throw him a welcome party. Owl struggles over a crossword puzzle but is too proud to ask for help. Robin suggests they hold a spelling bee and Owl is the quizmaster- they start off with quite difficult words, start to get muddled, and then stop because it rains. Rabbit decides to organize a census but almost nobody cooperates because they haven’t any idea what he’s doing or why. He wants to count all his relatives so invites them with offerings of refreshments, but there’s too many rabbits, nobody wants the carrots (they all prefer shortbread) and they cause havoc in his house. There is a drought. The otter appears and is anxious to help them find water- a well is located and when the bucket doesn’t function properly, little Piglet is the brave one sent down to investigate. Afterwards he’s disappointed not to be more prominently featured in Pooh’s rhyme about the whole affair. Then the bee tree is found to be empty- which Pooh discovers when he nearly runs out of honey. Alarmed, they go looking for the bees- Eeyore suggests they may have swarmed, Lottie recommends they coax the bees back with flowers, but it’s Pooh who finally succeeds in leading the bees back home. Owl decides to write a book about his uncle, and doesn’t come out of his house for days. Friends knocking at the doors and windows are rebuffed and ignored. So the animals get up to some strange shenanigans to make owl give up writing (my least favorite of the stories). Lottie declares that many of the forest animals are “uncouth” and need educating. They set up a school with herself, Owl, Rabbit and Kanga teaching the others. It was a nice effort, but . . . fell flat. Same with the next chapter, all about a game of cricket (I don’t know the sport but it seems similar to baseball – a precursor?) Tigger eats too many blackberries, gets slightly ill and imagines that he misses his homeland of Africa. His friends try to recreate what they think an African jungle looks like for him, only to realize later that tigers aren’t from that part of the world at all. The animals have a harvest festival, and they sadly learn that Christopher Robin is leaving again- but he will always be their friend.
4 Responses
Yeah, I hear you. I tried to enjoy this book thoroughly, but I ended up thinking “There’s nothing I feel wrong about here, so why am I not finding it especially sweet or charming?” And on reflection it’s not the worst thing ever, but it’s far from Disney’s standard of handling Milne’s material, and for a piece like Winnie-the-Pooh, average is almost if not just the same as bad.
As you said, the characters always seemed off somehow. Pooh and Piglet are more or less fine, and Christopher Robin at least has a reason to have changed (although it could have been commented on in greater detail if it was deliberate, and for that matter, the ending where he leaves again is nowhere near as touching as the last of Milne’s stories.) But the others just don’t seem right – Eeyore appears constantly, but after his first appearance he always sounds too – how to say it? – active, and not gloomy enough. Owl, now that I think about it, was flagrantly odd; I don’t remember him getting so violently angry over being distracted from the smallest things.
The remaining four are somehow muffled by the narrative, which is no better. Kanga doesn’t have the focus on her maternal nature that she should, and her being perhaps the most patient of the group makes her losing her temper with them just as quickly as anyone else faintly wrong. Even lively Tigger is effectively colourless, as he does childish things as background detail that Roo might just as well have provided; the story all about him has him going to sleep, and he never even does anything that gives him some of his personality back before the end. Rabbit is, from what I remember, reasonably in character, but he spends so much time with his friends and relations that he’s hardly present at all (mind you, it was just boring hearing about them again and again, in elaborate detail, when the humour of them was always the enormous quantity of unremarkable animals). And that’s probably the biggest mistake in the book – the characters are never brought close enough together. They’re either alone or taking part in a group activity that doesn’t aid them feeling apart from each other, and that’s no good when the whole point of Winnie-the-Pooh, in film or prose, has always been the importance of kindness and companionship.
Then there’s Lottie. I dare say that she brings the book down the most in terms of character writing. I’m going to guess from what little you said here that you at least didn’t mind her, but I’m afraid I couldn’t help finding her infuriating from the start. I thought she was a spiteful, pompous twit and a hypocrite on top of that (the first thing she does is heckle Rabbit for looking like he’s stupid, but then she has the nerve to say in the most condescending and insulting way possible that she excels in good manners and should teach them to the other animals), and I resented that she was never taken down a peg or two as anyone else might have been. In fact the book seemed not even to be aware she was snobbish at all.
The plots were serviceable, at best. I liked the beginning (and I was touched by Benedictus’s dedication), the spelling bee seemed plausible and the ruse of Owl’s uncle haunting him did make me chuckle. But the others were sort of clunky – the cricket game was boring, with a beginning that would have fit into a poor modern children’s book better than Winnie-the-Pooh, Pooh’s search for honey was just Winnie-the-Pooh and Some Bees with extra steps, (and why couldn’t Pooh have had the honey from where the bees were living now?) and the harvest festival just felt like a list of things the characters did with the interactions taken out. That’s what everything after the welcome back party felt like, really.
There were some good things to say about it – the pictures are quite nice and the poems, while not as snappy as Milne’s, are pretty good – but they can’t make this a book to keep and treasure as the original Winnie-the-Pooh is. God knows the poor chap tried, but this sequel just doesn’t hold a candle to Milne.
Overall I agree with your rating. I feel that that’s the truthful rating, although Lottie alone might tempt me to make it even lower.
Thanks for commenting. Yes, we felt the same about much of it, though I was not as able to articulate as clearly. Do you have a book blog?
I’m so pleased you approve of my input! No, I haven’t got a book blog. I don’t even have social media.
Well, I do hope to see you again!