Customer Reviews

The Best of Winnie-the-Pooh (A Gift Book and CD)

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Several months ago, I purchased a set of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories narrated by Peter Dennis on tape. Not being able to find these on CD I purchased this CD narrated by Charles Kuralt. What a disappointment! He reads the stories with almost no inflection and absolutely no changes in character voices. If you want a really great rendition of these wonderfully funny and witty stories, seek out the ones narrated by Peter Dennis. Charles Kuralt was better at the news, with adults. Yawn!

Charles Kuralt reads these stories wonderfully...just the right sort of dry wit that I suspect A.A. Milne had in mind. My daughter falls asleep to the Pooh stories every night; first we read the book, and then she listens to the CD while she goes to sleep. Incidentally, the complete text of "Winnie-the-Pooh" ('though not "The House At Pooh Corner", as far as I know) read by Kuralt is available on audio cassette from Penguin Audiobooks.

True, this title won't leave your kids wide-eyed and jumping on the furniture, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. My 31 year-old wife has difficulty falling asleep at night after stressful days at the office, and let me tell you, Mr. Kuralt's deep, comfortable, fatherly voice does the trick every time. The readings are low-key but very well delivered--perfectly suited for the subtle genius that permeates the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. My only disappointment is that Kuralt didn't record more of Milne's 20+ Pooh stories (the CD contains 3 stories and some poems). If he had, I would have snapped them up in a heartbeat.

This little book is filled with the Winnie the Pooh Stories by A. A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shephard. It is 79 pages long, and is a small size, but that is what makes it so sweet.

Table of Contents:
From Winnie the Pooh:
Winnie the Pooh and some Bees
Pooh goes visitiing and Get into a Tight Place
From The House at Pooh Corner
Pooh invents a New Game and Eeyore Joins In
From When We Were Very Young
Buckingham Palace
Disobedience
Teddy Bear
From Now we Are Six
Sneezles
Binker
Us Two
The End

I can only think that the person complaining of Charles Kuralt reading in a monotone is speaking of his not attempting to read Piglet's part in a "high squeaky voice". As someone who has sat through many versions of Winnie the Pooh CDs, Tapes, DVDs etc... over and over again, with several versions of "high squeaky voices", I say THANK YOU Charles Kuralt. He reads with charm, warmth, and humor. I still enjoy listening to these tapes even now when the last of the babies is starting to move on to other things. This is the version I'll miss.

For those of us who grew up napping on Sunday mornings to Sunday Morning, this is definitely a must-have. Its also great for passing on the experience to your children and grandchildren! Mr. Kuralt's rich, comfortable voice lends a soothing charm to these selected stories and poems. Its also nice to have this selection include some of the poems, though it does not include my favorite (Vespers). You should note that this is not a dramatization of the books, but a reading. Mr. Kuralt gives the characters personality and inflection, but does not change his voice to create this effect. It is much more like grand-dad reading a bedtime story. As much as I love the other popular audio renditions of the Pooh tales and poems (particularly the Broadbent and Shaw edition), this is a welcome and oft-played part of my Pooh collection.