Tony Francis Rainone

Public domain Pooh!

Oh, no! All the honeypots in the Hundred Acre Wood are empty, and since Pooh can't remember cleaning them out, who did? The answer is underwhelming and hinted at prominently on the cover.

This short story is illustrated with Ernest Shepard's original Pooh illustrations, with the story being written to recycle them in sometimes silly ways. For instance, the image of Pooh stuck in Rabbit's door after feasting becomes Pooh planted in Rabbit's garden so he can go undercover as vegetation and keep an eye out for the honey burglars. Of course, most gardens are not planted in hillsides, though . . .

The story tries but is not very charming or witty, and it relies on the biggest cliche of Pooh tales: Pooh has a problem, so he visits his friends one by one until the problem is solved and they can all have a party.

Still, I'm always happy to see a non-Disney take on Pooh.

(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)