Mike Wall

The nothing story has Pooh wandering around gathering up his friends one by one so they can all do something together at the end of the book, but gosh darn if the art isn't adorably gorgeous!

There is no artist credited on the cover or inside, but the characters look exactly like those drawn by Mike Wall in The Little Things in Life: Simple Reflections from the Hundred-Acre Wood, so I'd guess it is more of his fine work. Let me compare to be sure . . . and . . . YES! . . . all the pictures in this book were taken directly from that book. Aline Lemay just wrote a new story to tie them together here. I wish Phidal Publishing had given Wall proper credit, and I hope he'll get a decent story to draw one day.

In addition to the board book story pages, there is a boxed area in the back of the book with a big playmat featuring more of the same beautiful art laying out the whole Hundred-Acre Wood and some mostly cute little figurines to play with on the mat. Kids should love it.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... )… (altro)

A laughably bad book with really nice illustrations.

In my review of Charlie Mackesy's The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, I wrote, "If A. A. Milne were forced to spend a year reading nothing but Hallmark cards and inspirational Facebook posts, Winnie-the-Pooh might have turned out something like this piece of junk." Well, someone at Disney must have noticed the success of that inane book and decided to churn out their own sickeningly trite version.

The most cliched Pooh plot is trotted out, with Pooh waking up one morning, encountering a problem, and then going around to his friends one by one until the problem goes away or is solved (usually by Christopher Robin) and a celebratory party can be had. Only now every page includes a little insipid aphorism that ties into whatever is happening on the page at the moment.

Some of the worst:
• Why sit at home and curse an empty belly when a friend might have food to share?
• Your friends are one of your greatest resources, and you are one of theirs.
• Don't let minor chores stand in the way of major accomplishments.
• Decisions, decisions . . . Life is full of them.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... )… (altro)

Disney's Christopher Robin movie is a most morose venture, following Christopher Robin out of the Hundred-Acre Wood, through World War II, to a mid-level job at a suitcase manufacturer. The film chooses to treat "Robin" as Christopher Robin's last name, dispensing with the Milne family, the famous books, and the actual life of A. A. Milne's son. Instead, he's an ordinary schmuck deep into a midlife crisis mostly revolving around work-life balance as he drifts further away from his wife and daughter. Fortunately, Pooh senses there is trouble and sets out to find him, bringing him back to the Wood so he can get back in touch with his inner child.

Using a mix of live action and CGI, it brings movement to the actual stuffed animals used during the filming, allowing very realistic Pooh friends to have adventures in the Hundred-Acre Wood and the streets of London. It would look terrific if it weren't directed by Eeyore, bringing a glum grayness to most of the scenes and a darkness to much of the script. I imagine children will eke out a little joy following the animals around the screen but find themselves quite bored during their long absences.

This picture book adaptation tries to get around this problem by focusing in on a segment from the middle of the film where Christopher Robin explores the Hundred-Acre Wood with Pooh after a long absence, searching for the other animals and trying to convince them he is not a giant, evil heffalump when they are found. It's a nice segment to adapt and is well illustrated, but it doesn't really tell a complete story and in the end is really a story about a sad man rather than fun little stuffed toys.

FOR REFERENCE:

This is an adaptation by Brittany Rubiano with illustrator Mike Wall of a middle segment from the Disney feature film, Christopher Robin, directed by Marc Forster; written by Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarthy, and Allison Schroeder, from a story by Greg Brooker and Mark Steven Johnson; and based on the characters created by A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard.… (altro)