Today is the birthday of A.A. Milne, known best for writing two novels of the Hundred Acre Wood, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. For anyone who remembers the friendship between the boy and the animals of the wood, including Piglet and Eeyore, the gentle stories of happy times and saving each other from dangers (and from themselves) were wonderful childhood experiences.
The novels were episodic. Meant to be told briefly as a series of stories, the stories were written to soothe Milne's son, Christopher Robin, who was introduced in the stories as the boy who went into the woods. Milne modeled the Hundred Acre Wood on Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, England. Milne had grown up in the English countryside, first writing scientific articles, then essays filled with whimsy, and later working as a playwright. But his stories of silly verse and comedic moments modeled after his son's toys, where the boy became a benign master of animals over Edward Bear and the other soft-hearted animals, were his most enduring legacy. They became a staple in nurseries around the world as parents read the two books to their little ones at naptime or bedtime.
A.A. Milne was inspired to write about bears not only by his son's teddy bear, but also by a real-life experience of seeing a "Winnie" bear who was tamed by men. A fateful whistle-stop encounter with a gentle bear cub begins the historic friendship, when a veterinarian named Colebourn buys the cub for 20 dollars. Though officers in Colebourn's division were initially aghast, they were quickly won over by her irrepressible charm, and the bear, named Winnipeg after their hometown, became the division's mascot. Winnie accompanied the soldiers all the way to England, where Colebourn eventually took Winnie to the London Zoo to keep her safe from going into battle. --There Christopher Robin met Winnie and the rest is literary history.
For years following the publication of the books, their world and philosophy was debated. Some scholars picked up apart the complicated relationship between Christopher Milne and his father A. A., others noted the incredibly limited revisions that A.A. made over the years, grounding the stories in their original form as almost perfect in a way that his relationship with his son was inevitably not. A few studied the psychology of the friends, others the Disneyfication of the stories. Still others looked at the legacy of Winnie the Pooh as a archetype for children's fascination with the world, in a way that adults forgot to trust. In 1982, there was even a book - the Tao of Pooh - where it was written that everything in life you needed to know was already spoken or done by one small yellow bear at the edge of the Hundred Acre Wood.
So, happy birthday to Mr. Milne. His most famous creation lives on in the hearts of children -- making everyone's favorite day, today.
![[An illustration from A. A. Milne's The House at Pooh Corner. Christopher Robin, a young boy, is standing in a raincoat on the left. Winnie the Pooh and Piglet are standing in the middle. All of them are watching Eeyore walking away.]](https://libapps.s3.amazonaws.com/customers/2058/images/pooh-christopher.jpg)
series of stories, the stories were written to soothe Milne's son, Christopher Robin, who was introduced in the stories as the boy who went into the woods. Milne modeled the Hundred Acre Wood on Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, England. Milne had grown up in the English countryside, first writing scientific articles, then essays filled with whimsy, and later working as a playwright. But his stories of silly verse and comedic moments modeled after his son's toys, where the boy became a benign master of animals over Edward Bear and the other soft-hearted animals, were his most enduring legacy. They became a staple in nurseries around the world as parents read the two books to their little ones at naptime or bedtime.
A.A. Milne was inspired to write about bears not only by his son's teddy bear, but also by a real-life experience of seeing a "Winnie" bear who was tamed by men. A fateful whistle-stop encounter with a gentle bear cub begins the historic friendship, when a veterinarian named Colebourn buys the cub for 20 dollars. Though officers in Colebourn's division were initially aghast, they were quickly won over by her irrepressible charm, and the bear, named Winnipeg after their hometown, became the division's mascot. Winnie accompanied the soldiers all the way to England, where Colebourn eventually took Winnie to the London Zoo to keep her safe from going into battle. --There Christopher Robin met Winnie and the rest is literary history.
here it was written that everything in life you needed to know was already spoken or done by one small yellow bear at the edge of the Hundred Acre Wood.