New Winnie The Pooh book coming

[Raph's Girl]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090109/ap_en_ot/eu_britain_pooh_is_back_2

Publishers in Britain and the United States say the world's favorite "silly old bear" is back.

They say they'll publish a new book of Winnie-the-Pooh adventures on Oct. 5. "Return to the Hundred Acre Wood" is the first authorized sequel to A.A. Milne's stories.

It'll be published in Britain by Egmont Publishing and in the U.S. by Penguin imprint Dutton Children's Books.

The book is written by novelist and playwright David Benedictus and illustrated by British artist Mark Burgess.

The "bear of very little brain" first appeared in 1926 in Milne's "Winnie-the-Pooh," which featured E.H. Shepard's iconic line drawings. A second book, "The House at Pooh Corner," also recounted the gentle adventures of Christopher Robin and his animal friends in the Hundred Acre Wood.

Hmmm....this should be interesting.. I guess either the Milne family or Disney approved of this??? I haven't payed much attention to the ole lawsuit. I'll definatly be buying this tho. Altho Im not sure if It'll be as good as the original books (which I of course have). I sure as heck didn't like the official sequel to Peter Pan. :/

[The Stryker]

Aren't these books for 4 year olds?

[cup-mikey-gertha]

Looks cute. :P Silly old bear.

[Voltron]

Aren't these books for 4 year olds?

Well, we ARE on a message board named after a cartoon aimed at 4 year olds. To balance out, we should have a hard core porno thread.

[Machias Banshee]

Only you would mention porn in a Winnie the Pooh thread, Volt... :P


AS long as they don't Politically correct this thing to death, I might take a peek...

[Jester]

AS long as they don't Politically correct this thing to death, I might take a peek...
I found an excerpt:

"Winnie was a morbidly obese bear, due to his food addiction to hunny. He was visiting a 12 step program to attempt to get back on track, and it was helping mightily. He got up and did his morning routine with extra haste for he was to spend the day with his close friend Piglet, but in a totally platonic way. Pooh and Piglet do not engage in alternate lifestyles, not that there is anything wrong with that."

[Ninjinister]

I found an excerpt:

"Winnie was a morbidly obese bear, due to his food addiction to hunny. He was visiting a 12 step program to attempt to get back on track, and it was helping mightily. He got up and did his morning routine with extra haste for he was to spend the day with his close friend Piglet, but in a totally platonic way. Pooh and Piglet do not engage in alternate lifestyles, not that there is anything wrong with that."

Jester wins the thread.

[LeoNerdo]

haha. I may check this out some time. I read the first two when I was 8 or 9 and really enjoyed them. I think and still have them on my bookshelf.

[Candy Kappa]

looks interesting

[ZariusTwo]

Aren't these books for 4 year olds?

Y'mean like John Cena?

[Chrissie Terrapin]

I love Winnie the Pooh

[NiNi]

That's nice to know. ^^ I may not be a complete fan of Winnie the Pooh, but it's nice to know that literature classics like that are still coming around.

[Lil G]

Only you would mention porn in a Winnie the Pooh thread, Volt... :P


AS long as they don't Politically correct this thing to death, I might take a peek...

And you just metioned it too.:D So i guess you and Voltron are the only people who wound mention what you are mentioning in a Winnie the Pooh thread.

[The Stryker]

Y'mean like John Cena?

Nah, Cena is for 10 to 15 year olds.

[Sewer Bull]

Only you would mention porn in a Winnie the Pooh thread, Volt... :P


AS long as they don't Politically correct this thing to death, I might take a peek...

How can they politically correct Winnie The Pooh? By adding stuffed animals coming from minorities?

[Raph's Girl]

How can they politically correct Winnie The Pooh? By adding stuffed animals coming from minorities?

Wouldn't Tigger be a minority since he's the only one of his kind??

[BubblyShell22]

Yes, he would. I don't know if I'll check this out or not even though I do have the other two books plus the poetry books "When We Were Very Young" and "Now We Are Six."

[Raph's Girl]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_en_ot/eu_britain_pooh_is_back

When we left them, Christopher Robin was going away, and Things were going to be Different.

Now, more than eight decades later, a rumor is sweeping the Hundred Acre Wood. According to Owl, who heard it from Rabbit, who heard it from Piglet, the adventures are about to resume. It falls to the bear to pass on the news to Eeyore.

"It's Christopher Robin," said Winnie-the-Pooh. "He's coming back."

The drama (and for the Hundred Acre Wood, where life is lived gently, this qualifies) unfurls in the first authorized sequel to A.A. Milne's classic children's tales. Called "Return to the Hundred Acre Wood," the book by author David Benedictus goes on sale Oct. 5 and picks up where Milne's "The House at Pooh Corner," first published in 1928, left off.

Pooh purists are surprised anyone thinks there's a need for a new book, arguing that Milne's work should be left to stand alone. But the Trustees of Pooh Properties — which manages the affairs of the estates of Milne and illustrator E.H. Shepard — had long wanted to carry on with the books first published in the 1920s.

"When I first mentioned it there was sort of a shocked silence, and the people to whom I spoke said, 'ooh, you can't do that. Oh, no no no. That wouldn't do at all,'" recalled trustee Michael Brown, when he first raised the possibility of a sequel.

It wasn't until the trustees read an early version of the story that Benedictus sent them that they felt there was an appropriate successor, Brown said.

This is a classic-looking Pooh. In the illustrations by Mark Burgess, Christopher Robin seems a little older, but Piglet returns to his traditional green outfit, and the bear hasn't dropped any weight. But there is a new addition to the Wood's residents, according to advance publicity: Lottie the Otter, a stickler for etiquette who is also a keen fan of the very English game of cricket, joins the crowd.

Benedictus said it seemed right that a new friend arrive for new adventures. He said he was careful to keep the spirit, tone, and language faithful to Milne — though he didn't feel any particular pressure in taking up where the classic left off.

"If I did it badly, it wouldn't be like I'd destroyed the originals," said Benedictus, a novelist and playwright who was responsible for the audio adaptations of several Pooh stories. "I hoped I could do it well. But no, I don't think I felt a weighty responsibility — that would have been a bit pompous."

Pompous, perhaps, but understandable. In Britain, Pooh is "an intrinsic part of our culture, terribly English, a national treasure and all that," said Brown. The manuscripts are held by Cambridge University, the British Library has important Pooh items — correspondence and small figurines of the characters, for example — and Milne's work is held in high esteem by fans and academics alike.

"It's absolutely the best book ever written, and I mean it," said Maria Nikolajeva, a professor of education at Cambridge University, who has taught Milne's work for 30 years.

"All the primary things that are necessary for human life are there," she said. "It's a philosophical book, it's a book with incredible depth, and it's a pity if it's misinterpreted as light entertainment."

In fact, Winnie the Pooh inspired a runaway best-seller in the 1980s called "The Tao of Pooh" which used the beloved bear to explain the basics of the eastern philosophical tradition of Taoism.

In the final chapter of "The House at Pooh Corner," Christopher Robin asks for understanding, "whatever happens," and makes Pooh promise he won't forget about him, ever. Pooh does, and Milne then makes a promise of his own to the reader: Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them, there will always be a little boy and his bear playing in an enchanted place.

The book addresses topics such as the necessity of growing up and moving on, Nikolajeva says, and she believes that if Milne had wanted a sequel to the books, he would have written it himself.

"The whole point is that the boy has to go away from his childhood, from this very idyllic pastoral world of his childhood," she said. "This is an absolutely perfect ending, and doing anything beyond this is pointless."

Benedictus disagrees, suggesting that Milne was turning his attentions to a more grown-up audience. "I think he always rather resented the fact that he'd had so much success with his children's books," he said, adding that Milne, who died in 1956, might have run out of ideas or have been finished with his characters.

Milne had written books and plays for adults pre-Pooh, and also worked at "Punch" magazine as a writer and editor. Post-Pooh, he continued to write for grown-ups but remained best known for his works for younger readers.

Brown said the book, which is published in Britain by Egmont Publishing and in the U.S. by Penguin imprint Dutton Children's Books, tried to be sensitive to the original, greatly beloved, works.

"The good professor and other great lovers of Pooh will have to form their own conclusions," Brown said. "And they may say, 'oh, it's not quite as good, it's not quite the same.' I can't help that. All I can say is we tried very hard to do something that's not offensive, shall we say."

Ya know.. I don't think I've ever read House At Pooh Corner..... Guess I'd better before the sequel comes out. But to add an Otter? I'd rather prefer Gopher....

[ZariusTwo]

Dice Clay: Winnie The Pooh...HE NEEDED THE MONAY!