When We Were Very Young (Winnie-the-Pooh - Classic Editions) - Softcover

Milne, A. A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1405211180 ISBN 13: 9781405211185

Publisher: Egmont, 2013

Synopsis

'They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace - Christopher Robin went down with Alice.'

Curl up with A. A. Milne’s classic book of poetry for children, When We Were Very Young. This is the first volume of rhymes written especially for children by Milne – as popular now as when they were first written. Featuring E. H. Shepard’s original illustrations, this collection is a heart-warming and funny introduction to children’s poetry, offering the same sense of humour, imagination and whimsy that we’ve come to expect from Milne's favourite books about Winnie-the-Pooh, that Bear of Very Little Brain.

Do you own all the classic Pooh titles?

Winnie-the-Pooh

The House at Pooh Corner

When We Were Very Young

Now We Are Six

Also look out for Return to the Hundred Acre Wood and The Best Bear in all the World (coming soon)

The nation’s favourite teddy bear has been delighting generations of children for 90 years. Milne’s classic children’s stories – featuring Piglet, Eeyore, Christopher Robin and, of course, Pooh himself – are both heart-warming and funny, teaching lessons of friendship and reflecting the power of a child’s imagination like no other story before or since.

Pooh ranks alongside other beloved character such as Paddington Bear, and Peter Rabbit as an essential part of our literary heritage. Whether you’re 5 or 55, Pooh is the bear for all ages.

A.A. Milne is quite simply one of the most famous children’s authors of all time. He created Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, Kanga and Roo based on the real nursery toys played with by his son, Christopher Robin. And those characters not only became the stars of his classic children’s books, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, and his poetry for children, they have also been adapted for film, TV and the stage. Through his writings for Punch magazine, A.A. Milne met E.H. Shepard. Shepard went on to draw the original illustrations to accompany Milne’s classics, earning him the name “the man who drew Pooh”.

About this title

Review:

This is the first volume of rhymes written especially for children by A.A. Milne. Although many of the rhymes refer to times past--not many of today's children have a nurse to look after them--the humour and simplicity of the rhymes make them as popular now as when they were first written. Accompanied by E.H. Shepard's original illustrations in colour, this is a handy volume to have on standby for reading to young children. --Philippa Reece

About the Author:

A.A. Milne grew up in a school - his parents ran Henley House in Kilburn, for young boys - but never intended to be a children's writer. Pooh he saw as a pleasant sideline to his main career as a playwright and regular scribe for the satirical literary magazine, Punch.

Writing was very much the dominant feature of A.A. (Alan Alexander)'s life. He joined the staff of Punch in 1906, and became Assistant Editor. In the course of two decades he fought in the First World War, wrote some 18 plays and three novels, and fathered a son, Christopher Robin Milne, in 1920 (although he described the baby as being more his wife's work than his own!).

Observations of little Christopher led Milne to produce a book of children's poetry, When We Were Very Young, in 1924, and in 1926 the seminal Winnie-the-Pooh. More poems followed in Now We Are Six (1927) and Pooh returned in The House at Pooh Corner (1928). After that, in spite of enthusiastic demand, Milne declined to write any more children's stories as he felt that, with his son growing up, they would now only be copies based on a memory.

In one way, Christopher Robin turned out to be more famous than his father, though he became uncomfortable with his fame as he got older, preferring to avoid the literary limelight and run a bookshop in Dartmouth. Nevertheless, he published three volumes of his reminiscences before his death in 1996.

About this edition

• Publisher: Egmont
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1405211180
• ISBN 13: 9781405211185
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112
• Illustrator: Shepard E. H.