What a wonderful feeling it is, to know that wherever you are there is something you love. It is a feeling millions of readers have for the Christopher Robin books.The verses here, and in When We Were Very Young, the stories in Winnie-The-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner have endeared themselves to so many readers that it is painful to try to imagine what the world would be like without them.
The perfect book for that all-important birthday, Now We Are Six is much more than a worthy successor to When We Were Very Young; it is a modern classic in its own right.
The beguiling verses are rendered more delightful by E.H. Shepard's enchanting pictures.
About the Author
A. A. Milne was born in England in 1882, the third and youngest son of London schoolteachers. As a boy he wrote verses, parodies, and short humorous pieces for his school’s paper. He went on to study at Cambridge. In 1903 he left school to write. Before long he was supporting himself on his earnings, and became an editor at Punch magazine. In 1913 he married Dorothy de Selincourt. He began his military service in 1915 in Europe. During this time he wrote three plays, all of which were produced on the London stage. Christopher Robin Milne was born in 1920. It was Christopher’s toy bear, pig, donkey, tiger, and kangaroo that became the inspiration for the famous Pooh books. A. A. Milne wrote more plays, a novel, his autobiography, and political nonfiction, although he is best remembered for Winnie-the-Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner, When We Were Very Young, and Now We Are Six. Milne died in 1956.
Ernest H. Shepard was born in 1879 in London. His father was an architect and his mother, who died when he was ten years old, was the daughter of a notable watercolorist. It was she who first encouraged young Ernest to paint and draw. Art became Ernest's passion, and after attending Heatherley's Art School and the Royal Academy Schools, Shepard supported himself by drawing for the illustrated papers and by illustrating books. In 1903, Shepard married Florence Chaplin. Florence was a mural painter and fellow student at the Academy. The Shepards had two children: Graham, who was killed in World War II, and Mary, who later illustrated P. L. Travers’s Mary Poppins books. During World War I, Shepard served in France, Belgium, and Italy, attaining the rank of major. On his return to England, he continued with his art. He became a regular contributor to Punch, the classic British humor magazine, where he met A. A. Milne, a man who was to be instrumental to his career. Shepard was elected to the editorial board of Punch, and shortly thereafter, he agreed to do the illustrations for Milne's first book of verse, When We Were Very Young. The illustrations that Shepard created for all four of the Pooh books received worldwide acclaim. For the next 30 years, he continued to illustrate books for both adults and children. In 1973, for the first time, he added color to his drawings for Winnie-the-Pooh. Shepard ultimately donated several hundred drawings to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Ernest H. Shepard continued to pursue his love of drawing until his death in 1976.
We could have a Winnie-the-Pooh convention with all the audiobook versions that have cropped up this season. All are quite classic renditions of the Pooh stories--particularly welcome after the recent trend that made every story into a cartoon. It's quite hard to make distinctions among these except to say that if you'd prefer an American voice reading Pooh's adventures with Eeyore, Piglet, Roo, Owl and Christopher Robin, try Charles Kuralt's readings. They may sound a bit like On the Road With Pooh and Piglet, but Kuralt's avuncular voice takes the perfect tone for the longer stories of Winnie-the-Pooh and The House At Pooh Corner. He's fully relaxed and lets the narrative take its familiar path while keeping the whimsy fresh. Families can enjoy this reading and parents will appreciate the understated British humor as they become part of the audience instead of narrators themselves. R.F.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
![Five Little Peppers and How They Grew [with Biographical Introduction]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61xSbGVAZsL._UX300undefined_.jpg)
