Greetings from merry old England!
I write you from the storied haunt of the golden age writers, cup of tea appropriately in hand. Hey, this is where the Golden Age began and I’m finding great inspiration in roaming the hills and dales and cobblestone streets of my favorite authors. I’m going to come home significantly poorer as there are countless old book shops crammed in every nook with compact beauties of children’s literature. So in the midst of all this literary enjoyment, I thought I’d just go ahead and begin my reviews, no better place to begin than in England. In honor of my time here, I’ve decided to begin with a classic. In and among my reviews of the newer and lesser known children’s stories, I’ll be periodically posting a review of the golden classics just to refresh our memories. It is an endless amazement to me how forgotten the golden age children’s classics have become. I’m on a one-woman mission to revive the knowledge and love of them.
So to begin: Winnie the Pooh.
I know. So basic. But I heard it read aloud the other day for the first time in years and it’s excellence caught me quite by surprise. You must picture the setting; thirty or so sophisticated, philosophical students at L’Abri all perched round a manor house great room for tea on a stormy afternoon, each reading a different part of the tale. We chose Pooh’s expedition to the North Pole. The story had all of us, children, parents, college-students, post-graduates, old and young laughing until our sides quite literally ached.
From an adult point of view, I was struck by the cleverness of the telling; the artfully captured personality of each animal (you’ll find yourself identifying with one of them, I guarantee), the whimsy of the writer, the compact delight of the small world of the Hundred Acre Wood. Milne was quite a clever writer whose delight in the creation of this compact world for his son comes through in every line.
Reading in view of a child audience, the simplicity and whimsy of the story stood out strongly. For the Pooh stories are delightful, told in words and images accessible and familiar to any child. But there is a subtle undercurrent of moral instruction running through the veins of this simple story. Lessons in basic virtues of kindness, friendship, loyalty and courage run quietly through each compact tale. In this, the Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is much like it’s fellow golden age classics in its creation of a small, personal world that is implicitly moral and explicitly beautiful, creating an imaginative reality of goodness in the mind of a small child. These stories are simple, they are innocent, but their loveliness crafts a value for goodness and beauty in the quickly-forming values of children. For this, and their timeless delight, I think they are to be deeply treasured. Enjoy.
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Sarah,
I look forward to more reviews of children’s literature. How lovely it must have been to be sitting in an old manor house on a stormy afternoon reading this book. I have two little guys whom I will be spending some time with doing the same. Albeit, it won’t be in an old manor house, just a farm house. Thanks for sharing, Sarah!
I have pulled our dusty copy of Pooh down from the shelf, inspired to read it to my two youngest children. I enjoyed it immensely ten years ago with my oldest daughter, but I’ve been pushing ever onward through new booklists and Pooh seems to have been expunged from the lists that I’ve been reading through of late. For shame! Our family has enjoyed all the books we’ve read that have been recommended by the Clarksons (Bunny Bungalow has been memorized due to sheer repetition) and I look forward to more. I will be regularly checking this blog!
I am so looking forward to your future reviews!
Thank you for encouraging us read quality books.
I tried reading Pooh at one point, but my daughter wasn’t quite ready. You’ve inspired me to try it again for my own enjoyment and to give her a second chance at it as well.
Jessika
Hi Sarah,
I enjoyed your talk so much (yesterday at Mariner’s church), I just had to browse your blog to glean more insight. Thank you for allowing the Lord to use you by reaching out to Mom’s like me who need to see the outcome of homeschooling!
May God richly bless you!
P.S. I had 2 cups of tea yesterday. I forgot how much I love tea!
Ooh… Pooh and the Hundred Acre wood. I think in our vast little (oxymoron!) 2 year old’s library we have only 1 pooh book. I think we need to remedy that. Thanks for the reminder….
It was interesting to read your review about winnie the Pooh- i am an english literature student at university and have recently written a critical essay on Children’s Literature based on Winnie the Pooh. I certainly agree with your view point, having read the book in my childhood and revisiting it now from a critics point of view has been most rewarding. I would encourage all to visit the book as it offers so much to all age groups, not just children.