disney | Lost in a Good Book

A Boy, a Bear, a Balloon by Brittany Rubiano

Published: 3rd July 2018
Publisher: Disney Press
Illustrator: Mike Wall
Pages: 40
Format: Hardcover Picture Book
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ – 5 Stars

Retelling touching scenes from the upcoming Walt Disney Studios’ upcoming Christopher Robin film, this charming picture book finds Christopher reuniting with Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, and the rest of his old friends when he returns to the Hundred Acre Wood for the first time since childhood. As he returns to the life he once new, Christopher sees the world through new eyes and discovers that even as everything around us seems to change, the most important things remain constant.

I have an intense love for Winnie the Pooh so of course I was eager to read this new picture book featuring my favourite bear. Rubiano does a good job mixing the old and the new, even putting in the dedication a quote from one of the best Winnie the Pooh films: Pooh’s Grand Adventure.

My heart did a small leap of joy as I recognised many of Milne’s quotes from the original books, reworked into this story which only brought the woods back to life and reminded me how much I adore these characters. The story also casually revisits some of the original Pooh adventures, seen now through the eyes of the older Christopher Robin which reminds us how much he has changed. He visits his old friends and they fail to see the young boy they knew in this man who has entered their woods.

Rubiano doesn’t quite catch the tone of Milne’s writing, it is very close, and you can see where it’s drawing from, but at the same time I don’t think it’s meant to mimic it exactly. This is her own story that is reflecting part of the upcoming film. With that in mind it is unfair to make it live up to the previous Winnie the Pooh books. Coming at these beloved characters from the mind of an adult like Christopher Robin, but still telling the story to children (or even those who left the woods a long time ago), it has a suitable tone and one that still manages to reignite that love and affection.

The illustrations are a beautiful mixture between Shepherds and the ever familiar Disney. I loved how Wall has brought his style to the characters while still keeping them familiar. The colours are beautiful and his designs are simplistic and elegant, showing just enough detail.

There is a lot of responsibility to writing and illustrating for Winnie the Pooh (in my view anyway), but this book does a beautiful job in presenting a story for those of us who are a little but more grown up and find ourselves wandering back to the Hundred Acre Woods.

Because of the popularity and endearing nature of Winnie the Pooh there is always going to be reminders about other adaptations and in those final pages. On that final page I found my mind immediately going to a quote from the masterpiece 1977 film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh:

“Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in their enchanted place on top of the forest, a little bear will always be waiting”.

*cue Amy sobbing*

You can purchase A Boy, A Bear, A Balloon via the following

Booktopia | Book Depository |

Amazon | Amazon Aust | Wordery

Fishpond | QBD

Misquotes and Misattribution

I’ve mentioned in previous posts over the years the inaccuracies between quotes attributed to Milne and Winnie the Pooh. For some reason Milne has become the new Mark Twain where quotes become their’s whether or not they actually are. I probably helped spread some of these wrong quotes in past posts but I try to correct them when I realise.

Not a quote from Milne

I have a few theories on how these wrong quotes get spread around. Aside from Milne getting credit when a line is spoken in a Disney film, another theory is that people were placing quotes over Winnie the Pooh pictures and that started it, or maybe they think things sound like a Milne quote and they aren’t.

Websites like MyTownTutors that have ‘Great A. A. Milne Quotes‘ are great and all but the fact that barley any of those quotes are actually from Milne is only perpetuating these misquotes. Thankfully people on the internet have done some of the work for me so I don’t need to spend a week checking them all. Of the 59 listed on the MyTownTutors website only 14 were from ANY of the four Milne books. Another dozen or so were paraphrased or variations on the real quote. The rest weren’t Disney or Milne. One I know to be false is “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” Not Milne or Disney but a 1975 movie..

Not Milne, actually from Disney’s Pooh’s Grand Adventure

This Buzzfeed quiz tests your knowledge of Pooh against other great quotes. The only problem is, none of those attributed to Pooh are actually from Milne. There is one that comes close, paraphrased incredibly but as close as the rest get. The popular quote “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day” is simplified a bit from the House at Pooh Corner quote “By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”

There was even a Quotation Audit done to Winnie the Pooh’s Goodreads page that assessed what was correct attribution and what wasn’t. The result was that 14 quotes (just over one fifth of all those listed) that were not from any Milne publication nor Disney movie. Then the rest were from House at Pooh Corner, a different book entirely, but at least it was a Milne work.

Not a Milne or Disney

There is a list of Essential and Authentic Milne Quotes that are just as beautiful and funny as the incorrect ones. I’m not sure if there is a way to stop the spread of misattribution, but it’s not for lack of trying. There are a few sites dedicated to clearing up this confusion. I’ve mentioned Pooh Misquoted in the past, and the DailyKos page is another good one that tries to weed out the true from the not. They are few and far between but a great source to make clear Milne didn’t write every single Pooh quote, nor as it turns out, has Disney.

As the wise Abraham Lincoln once said:

Image result for quotes lincoln internet