Over three hundred books into my Pooh Project, and I have yet to read any of the original Milne books? Oops. Well, here we go!

Unfortunately, this one is all poetry, and I'm not a fan of poetry. At least it's short.

For me, Milne's poems work best when their from the perspective of a child exerting their will or independence, rebelling against the dominance and stupidity of adults: "Politeness," "Rice Pudding," "Independence," "Market Square." The best of these and the jauntiest to read out loud is "Disobedience" with James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree and his straying mother.

Winnie the Pooh makes an appearance under the alias of Edward Bear with a reflection on body image that barely prepares one for the greatness to come.

(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... ) ( )

This is an eclectic mix of poetry, perhaps told from the view of Christopher Robin. (A.A. Milne leaves that guess up to the reader.) The poems cover the gambit from kings, to sword fights to Pooh bear contemplating the size of his tummy. Some of the themes are really dated but I think children could still relate to a lot of it. (I think this one would be good for parents to read first.)

On the plus side, the illustrations are adorable and there are several rather sophisticated poems in the book, which surprised me.

The Mirror
Between the woods the afternoon
Is fallen in a golden swoon,
The sun looks down from quiet skies,
To where a quiet water lies,
And silent trees stoop down to trees.

And there I saw a white swan make
Another white swan in the lake;
And, breast to breast, both motionless,
They waited for the wind's caress,
And all the water was at ease.

Overall Rating: 3.5 stars rounded up to 4
Original Publication Date: 1924 ( )

I know and like these poems. Unfortunately the Open Media ebook I got has _horrible_ formatting - they maintained all the pictures (yay!) but the text is often split by the pictures, in ways that lose a line or two. In order to read several of the poems I had to scroll back and forth and back and... At best, this is a distraction; at worst - I only knew some of them were missing lines because I know the poems. A pity - a poor edition of a usually (mildly) enjoyable book. ( )

NA

New copies of old favourites bought for my grandchildren. They have not shown as much interest as I would have expected. ( )