Wecannotbeartoignore day for Winnie the Pooh!
One of the cuddliest days of the year has to be Winnie the Pooh Day, which this year falls on Monday January 18.
The teddy was created by English author AA Milne and English illustrator EH Shepard.
The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh published in 1926, followed by The House at Pooh Corner in 1928.
Milne also included a poem about the bear in the children’s verse book When We Were Very Young published in 1924 and many more in Now We Are Six in 1927.
All four volumes were illustrated by EH Shepard.
The Pooh stories have been translated into many languages
In 1961 Walt Disney Productions licensed certain film and other rights of Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories from the estate of AA Milne and adapted the Pooh stories, using the unhyphenated name “Winnie the Pooh” into a series of features that would eventually become one of its most successful franchises.
Milne named the character Winnie-the-Pooh after a teddy bear owned by his son Christopher Robin Milne, on whom the character Christopher Robin was based.
The rest of Christopher Milne’s toys – Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, and Tigger – were incorporated into Milne’s stories.
Two more characters,
Owl and Rabbit, were created by Milne’s imagination, while Gopher was added to the Disney version.
Christopher Milne had named his toy bear after Winnie – a Canadian black bear he often saw at London Zoo – and Pooh – a swan they encountered while on holiday.
In the Milne books, Pooh is naive and slow-witted, but he is also friendly, thoughtful and steadfast.
Although he and his friends agree that he is “a bear of very little brain,”
Pooh has great ideas like riding in Christopher Robin’s umbrella to rescue Piglet from a flood.
In the first chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh, Milne offers this explanation of why Winnie-the-Pooh is often called simply “Pooh”:
“But his arms were so stiff ... they stayed up straight in the air for more than a week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off.
“And I think – but I am not sure – that that is why he is always called Pooh.”
The wistfully warm stories are peppered with whimsy such as this from the House at Pooh Corner ...
The more it SNOWS-tiddely-pom,
The more it GOES-tiddely-pom
The more it GOES-tiddely-pom
On
Snowing.
If you are a fan. you’re in great company ... top playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn cites Winnie the Pooh books
among his favourite reads while TV presenter Holly Willoughby is among celebrity followers.
And, if you are home schooling, here are some ideas for younger fans ...
1 Read aloud stories from Winnie the Pooh while tucking into honey sandwiches.
2 Learn about the original black bear Winnipeg, or Winnie, who lived in the London Zoo from 1915 to her death in 1934.
3 Draw, paint or make your favorite scenes from the books or films.
4 Draw a map of Hundred Acre Wood, where Pooh lives, based on Ashdown Forest, East Sussex.
5 Watch the film and write a review - give your children tips on which characters they like best and what makes them laugh most.
6 Play Pooh Sticks with a bath full of water and lungs full of air.