Beyond the World of Pooh: Selections from the Memoirs of Christopher Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh Collection) [Hardcover]

Christopher Milne (Author), Leslie Milne (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1998 | Series: Winnie-The-Pooh Collection

Christopher Milne was the world-famous son of A. A. Milne. This collection brings together passages from the four volumes of C. R. Milne's memoirs. Covering his much-publicized childhood, his war experiences, marriage, and proprietorship of a bookshop, this book presents an intriguing portrait of a gifted man. He chose to live simply--a choice that ultimately brought a happiness that could never come from the empty fame of being the real Christopher Robin.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Volkman offers 12 "excursions," or lesson plans, designed to help secondary librarians steer their students through the research process. The first two lessons present basic reference books and include 70 sets of practice questions with answer keys. Excursion 3 introduces the term-paper process, with detailed instructions for a start-to-finish research project as well as sample research notes and finished papers. The remaining assignments build on this knowledge. Each lesson includes instructions, reproducibles, and a bibliography. These practical ideas will adapt easily to a specific grade, curriculum, or reference collection. The sailing metaphor wears a little thin (materials are "cargo," objectives are "destinations"), but this navigational aid will benefit any librarian struggling to stay afloat in a sea of research.
Debbie Johnson, Richardson West Junior High School, TX
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

To grow up in the shadow of a famous father is a difficult enough burden for anyone, but the late Christopher Milne also had to cope with being the real child who inspired his father's most famous work, Winnie the Pooh. As a writer himself, he has used his books of memoirs to affirm Christopher Milne as a person separate from his father and from Christopher Robin. Those four books, including two that were never published in the U.S., are combined and excerpted in this one volume, giving a fuller sense of Milne's life as a whole. This complete sweep of his life, with an introduction by his widow, allows the reader to see him as an introspective, independent child, certainly, but also as the husband, father, bookseller, and writer that he became. All in all, he was much more than the playmate of a bear. Danise Hoover

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Juvenile; 1st edition (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525458883
• ISBN-13: 978-0525458883
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,463,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Tedious and abrupt, June 11, 2000

By 

H. J. Wakenshaw "pootler" (The Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beyond the World of Pooh: Selections from the Memoirs of Christopher Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh Collection) (Hardcover)

I thought I'd enjoy this one, but I ended up regretting that I'd bought this edition of all three of Christopher Milne's memoirs, and not just the first book on its own. Obviously it would have been impossible to fit all three books into one volume, so the original books have been drastically abridged. But this has resulted in a rushed precis of Milne's life, rather than an enjoyable autobiography.

The first book was interesting; so much so that I was quite annoyed that so much of it had been edited out. Obviously, the first book, in which Milne tells us what it was like to be the real Christopher Robin, was always going to be the most appealing; everyone wants to know about where Pooh really came from and what he and C.R. really got up to in the Hundred Acre Wood.

But as "Beyond the world of Pooh" progressed it got more and more aimless and uninteresting. Once Milne has told us (in barely more than a few paragraphs in this edition) of his wartime exploits, and then how he went on to open his bookshop, there's not much more to tell. He appears to promise to tell us about his relationship with his handicapped daughter, but never delivers; a missed opportunity to bring some life into the story. Nothing much happens, and the book stagnates.

Of course, it was Milne's right, after a lifetime of being branded with the "Christopher Robin is saying his prayers" image of him created by the media, to retire to a quiet and uneventful life.

But did he have to write a book about it?

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars very dry, February 16, 2003

By 

microjoe - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Beyond the World of Pooh: Selections from the Memoirs of Christopher Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh Collection) (Hardcover)

This was a tough book to read. My father, aunt, and I are all avid readers and fans of Milne and all things Pooh. But this book was very dry and agonizingly slow. Interesting in bits and pieces, but none of us could finish the book. In my family that is a rarity for any book. It is really about the life of the son of the original author of the Pooh books. You do get a usual sense of the frustration of those who have famous parents here. The bset thing about the book was the 6 pictures in the book. They feature the original pooh toys, the real pooh sticks bridge, and the real hollow tree in England that A.A. Milne used in his stories. I was really looking forward to more.

1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why not combine all three volumes without editing?, February 6, 2002

By 

John Wheeler "Johanan Rakkav" (King David's Harp, Inc., Houston, TX. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beyond the World of Pooh: Selections from the Memoirs of Christopher Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh Collection) (Hardcover)

I'm going to give this one four stars sight-unseen. I have all three of the original volumes, and think they would be splendid combined into a single volume. One could wish the parts left out would be more from the last two volumes, as admittedly more people would be interested in the background of the Pooh Books as such than in Christopher Milne's own life. Since I know this likely is not the case, I will give this volume four stars. Had all three of the original volumes been combined without editing, I would have given it five stars.

You see, not everyone is concerned merely with either the Pooh Books or the boy who inspired the character Christopher Robin. I should know. Christopher Robin was not merely a character I enjoyed; he was my childhood alter ego, to a degree many of my readers may find hard to imagine. And yet, I knew there was a real boy behind the story, that he and I were much alike on many fundamental levels, and that I would be much interested in learning more about him. When I bought Christopher Milne's original volumes, I was happily flabbergasted to see how dead-on my intuition about him had been. Both as children and as adults, we indeed had much in common, and quite likely would have been good friends had we grown up in the same time and place.

I am far from being the pantheistic humanist that Christopher Milne became, or that A.A. Milne was before him. He says, candidly, that he never met the Christian God he heard about in church. But had I not become a Christian, I too would have become a pantheistic humanist, and for very similar reasons. I can sympathize with his viewpoint, even if I believe I can refute it. All in all, I found the original trilogy enjoyable and even challenging reading, and I'm sure I'd find the "condensed version" so as well. (Now if only someone could show me Lesley Milne's introduction to this volume...)