Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin, and all of their friends have adventures, get into scrapes, and sometimes just go for walks. There are 10 stories: Pooh and Piglet build a house for Eeyore (by taking apart and reassembling his existing house), they meet Tigger and he eats everyone’s food, everyone searches for Rabbit’s friend (a beetle) and gets lost in the woods, Tigger bounces into a tree and gets stuck, everyone learns that Christopher Robin has a life, Pooh invents a game where they race sticks in the creek, everyone tries to lose Tigger in the woods because he’s annoying (dark!), Owl’s treehouse falls down, Eeyore finds a new house for Owl (it’s just piglet’s house) and Christopher Robin leaves.

I never really clicked with Pooh and company as a kid, but it’s delightful to read from an adult perspective. Seeing the characters as pieces of Christopher Robin’s imagination, and the way that he uses twisted phrases and concepts he’s picked up from adults is fascinating. All of the characters are extremely cute, except (and I can’t believe how this has been erased from other Pooh media) Eeyore is an awful jerk! He calls the other animals “thing” and “it” even though everyone is very nice to him, and gives Pooh and Piglet a long lecture about how they’re not “Educated”. I thought Tigger was going to be my least favorite, but he’s way less obnoxious here than in the Disney-fied version. ( )

The book is much better than the disneyfied films. ( )

Of the 500+ Pooh books that my family owns, none top A. A. Milne's original two. My daughter and I laughed repeatedly over the antics of Pooh and his friends as I re-read this out loud to her.

It's good to be reminded how much the Disney adaptations differ from these original tales. I think the cartoons are great, but Milne's version rules!

(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... ) ( )

An absolute and utter delight to revisit on a cold, rainy night.

The origin story of Tigger.
The Backson
The sentimental moments with Christopher Robin and all of his beloved friends....

....there is a reason why the Hundred Acre Wood is one of my favorite literary lands. ( )

paperback