Yara Davis

Public domain Pooh . . . possibly??

I'm not sure this really counts in my Pooh Project.

The Pooh in this book is a stuffed teddy bear who talks to a little girl named Hope, but there is no reference to the Hundred-Acre Wood or anything else from A. A. Milne's books. In fact -- despite the title -- they are not even on Earth and spend the whole book making their way home.

It's dreadfully written, less like a story than someone's attempt at recapping a story they only vaguely remember reading once long ago. My only slightly exaggerated take: "So, like, they meet some creatures, see, and hang out with them a while. And they all become friends, see. Then, like, they meet some aliens, man, and hang out with them a while. And they all become friends, see. Then it all works out okay and they have a party."

And it's supposed to be inspirational, so almost ever page has Hope and Pooh being thankful to each other for their friendship, support, cooperation, and keeping each other safe. Or they're grateful for all the new friends they meet. They're thankful and grateful about everything, over and over. It's painful to read.

There are no credits for the illustrations in the actual book, but Amazon lists an "Anastasia M." as the illustrator. I thought there were multiple illustrators because the style changes several times throughout the book, giving the characters very inconsistent appearances, with the teddy bear growing and shrinking from page to page. I wouldn't be surprised if more hands were involved. The art is too cutesy for my taste, verging on the creepiness of Margaret Keane's big-eyed kids at times.

(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... )… (mehr)