Lessons from a Bear of Very Little Brain
Sam Torode on Children’s Literature
In four years of college, the most important thing I did was read Winnie-the-Pooh. Many of you will be surprised by my saying this, and it is with no small shame that I admit it. How, you ask, could I have made it through childhood, and all the way into college, without reading Winnie-the-Pooh?
But perhaps my experience is not so unique. When my grandparents reminisce about childhood, they recall the tales of Mother Goose and the Brothers Grimm, and books like Treasure Island and The Wizard of Oz. When my contemporaries reminisce about childhood, they recall episodes of Sesame Street and The Smurfs, or G.I. Joe and The Transformers.
For us, the classics of children’s literature were largely usurped by television. Not that we didn’t read—certainly, our parents and teachers forced us to read—but we did not take much joy and delight in reading, for books lacked television’s power to stimulate our senses and engage our emotions.
Not being widely read in the children’s classics, then, it was only at the beginning of my sophomore year in college that I discovered A. A. Milne, the British poet, essayist, playwright, and creator of Winnie-the-Pooh. At that time, my friend Dave and I began a tradition of reading stories aloud to each other. We started by sitting out-of-doors after classes and reading G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries.
Though Chesterton is always delightful, Father Brown proved a bit hard to follow while enjoying the breeze on a lazy fall afternoon. At Dave’s suggestion, we took up Winnie-the-Pooh. For me, the experience was nothing less than an epiphany.
Edward Bear, known to his friends as Winnie-the-Pooh, or Pooh for short, was walking through the forest one day, humming proudly to himself. He had made up a little hum that very morning, as he was doing his Stoutness Exercises in front of the glass: Tra-la-la, tra-la-la, as he stretched up high as he could go, and then Tra-la-la, tra-la—oh, help!—la, as he tried to reach his toes.
The words flowed on, sweet as honey. Milne proved an eloquent and sophisticated writer, and the adventures of Pooh perfectly delightful absurdities. This, I exclaimed, was literature.
We knew that this was an experience we could not keep to ourselves. Within a week, Dave and I appeared before the dean and explained why an official student organization was needed to encourage the reading aloud of Winnie-the-Pooh. Reluctantly, he granted us permission to proceed, expressing grave doubts as to whether college students would really be interested in sitting on the floor and being read to like children. We knew otherwise. And so the A. A. Milne Society was born.
Every other week, the meeting of the A. A. Milne Society commenced with robust greetings of “Hallo!” and “Happy Thursday!” Weary students, joined by a few faculty members, reclined on the floor, sitting or lying on plush carpet squares.
Establishing the proper mood, a student would recite a poem from Milne’s When We Were Very Young or Now We Are Six. This was followed by a chapter from one of the two Pooh books, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, always read by a professor or administrator. Concluding each session would be another selection of verse, presented by a student.
Sam Torode is a freelance writer and artist who lives in rural Wisconsin with his wife Bethany and their two young sons. A former designer of Touchstone, he and Bethany are the authors of Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception (Eerdmans).
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