Book Sharing Monday

This week I would like to share a classic book – Winnie The Pooh by A. A Milne. This is my younger daughter’s copy, although my own childhood paperbacks are around somewhere. If your only experience of Pooh Bear is the bowdlerised Disney cartoon versions, then I would strongly urge you to give the original gentle text a glance. Surprisingly, as it is seems a bit long and wordy for him, James will sit quietly and listen to stories being read to him from this book.His favourite is the first one – In which we are introduced to Winnie-the-Pooh and some Bees and the Stories begin.

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn’t.

I love this passage. In the hurly burly of family life I often find myself feeling the same way – for a moment – then off we go into the whirling reel again! I must try to bump more mindfully.

As the story progresses, Pooh bear spies a honey tree and tries to trick the bees into thinking he is a black cloud floating in the sky – with the help of Christopher Robin, a blue balloon and some black mud.

If only he had come to beekeeping classes with me - he might have learned that bees do not like the colour blue - Silly old Bear!