The 90th anniversary of Winnie the Pooh also coincides with the Queen’s 90th birthday. In celebration there has been a new story created that sees the two meet for the first time. Jane Riordan has written a story in the style of Milne, that sees the gang from the 100 Acre Woods head to London for the first time. Mark Burgess has illustrated the story, replicating Shepard’s style to also keep the Pooh style as true as possible.
The Queen already has a connection the Pooh Bear as it is said she loved the stories as a child, and A. A. Milne dedicated his collection of poems, Teddy Bear And The Other Songs From When We Were Very Young, to her in 1926.
The premise of this new story is that Pooh finds out it’s the Queen’s 90th birthday and wishes to give her a gift. So Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and Christopher Robin head off towards London to find the Queen at Buckingham Palace to present their gift personally. It is quite a sweet story, I was curious and thought it would just be a silly story but I was pleasantly surprised by the end. My full review is here, but I will say I quite liked it. You can see that Riordan has tried her best to keep it in the Milne style, being a special edition story a few things can be forgiven, but to her credit she has done a great job replicating the odd style Milne had of making things Things and nothings into Somethings.
There is a pdf available of the book if you would like to read it, or you can watch the video of it being narrated. It’s certainly a charming story that grows on you the further you read. I was quite surprised by the time I finished, I even got a little teary.
Lost in a Good Book 