“It’s snowing still,” said Eeyore gloomily.
“So it is.”
“And freezing.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” said Eeyore. “However,” he said, brightening up a little, “we haven’t had an earthquake lately.”
~The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne
If you’re like us, January is a hard month. The excitement of the holidays is over. It’s dark. Here in Colorado it’s been bitterly cold and on days like today, the wind cuts through our heavy coats, scarves and mittens like ice. But, as Eeyore wisely noted in The House at Pooh Corner, at least we haven’t had an earthquake lately.
The cold and dark of January is the perfect month to revisit the Hundred-Acre-Wood and be cheered up by the antics of Pooh Bear, Piglet and all their friends. And, as A. A. Milne’s birthday is January 18th, it’s the perfect time to celebrate his writing, his beloved characters, and do it all with a “little smackerel of something” sweet.
Here are our favorite recommendations for all things A.A. Milne:
Of course, we feel that everyone should have a complete treasury of The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh with illustrations by Ernest H. Shepard. But if you want to start with something smaller and easier to handle there are individual Pooh picture books with Shepard’s illustrations as well. If you have an early reader who would be overwhelmed by the thickness treasury, a set of the picture books displayed in a basket would likely be more enticing for them to pull out and read on their own. If you want to keep little fingers busy while you read the stories aloud there are a myriad of Pooh coloring books, but our favorite is this one with illustrations from the original stories.
Milne’s stories aren’t only for the young. I first read all the stories to my girl when she was around five. I read through them again when my boy was five and my girl ten. She loved the stories just as much at ten and actually picked up on far more of the humor and clever tidbits in Milne’s writing. And with each re-reading, I delight in the simple wisdom of Christopher Robin, Kanga, and Piglet.
The stories are perfectly suited to be read with tea and a biscuit or pastry, drizzled with a bit of honey, of course. For those who love to bake, The Winnie-the-Pooh cookbook has a series of simple recipes such as Honey Hot Chocolate and Fairy Toast and Popovers for Piglet. It also contains delightful quotes which can’t help but bring a smile to your lips as you read them. Poetry also goes quite well with tea, so grab a copy of Milne’s When We Were Very Young, and read it aloud while you have smackerel of something.
We also recommend Finding Winnie, a children’s picture book about the bear that inspired the Pooh tales. Or settle in for a family movie night with the Christopher Robin movie.
And, in the midst of the January doldrums remember: “It never hurts to keep looking for sunshine.”
In the hope of threading stories, threading lives,
Tina
P.S. Links are Amazon affiliate links. Books that you purchase from our links give us a small commission at no cost to you. We never recommend books or products we don’t love {and most often we own them ;-)}.