Returning to Pooh

In the eighty years that have passed since A.A. Milne last visited the Hundred Acre Wood, millions of readers have gone there to visit with Pooh, the world's best-loved bear who perennially longs for a little smackerel of honey, and all of his friends. Reading -- and rereading -- the Pooh books has brought great delight to readers young and old through the years. And now we have new Pooh stories to embrace.

Dutton Children's Books, which published Milne's first stories about Winnie-the-Pooh in 1926, has just published Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, written by David Benedictus and illustrated by Mark Burgess, with the support and approval of the Milne estate. Offering up ten new stories and a new character, Lottie the Otter, Return endeavors to capture the spirit of the original work by Milne and Ernest H. Shepard, the original Pooh illustrator.

Do Benedictus and Burgess succeed at their goal? You be the judge. Come see for yourself!