Pookie Puts the World Right [Paperback]

Ivy Wallace (Author)

Book Description

Series: Pookie

In this adventure Pookie believes the woodland would be better off without Winter's wind and snow and he is successful in sending Winter away for ever. At first Pookie is the hero of the day and the animals are delighted to be free of storms and freezing weather. But before long things in the forest start to go very wrong and Pookie has to make an amazing flight to meet Winter and persuade him to come back so the balance of nature can be restored.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

First published in 1947, Pookie Puts the World Right by Ivy Wallace follows the titular bunny as he banishes Winter for blowing down trees and leaving several residents of Bluebell Wood homeless.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

Reviews for Pookie Believes in Santa Claus include: 'If you didn't meet Pookie... in the 1950s you have a treat in store. A perfect story for those nearly-but-not-quite-ready for the truth.' Sunday Telegraph 'Will capture the imaginations of young people as well as the heawrts of their parents.' Colchester Evening Gazette

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Product Details

• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins Pub Ltd (November 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0006647359
• ISBN-13: 978-0006647355
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,183,359 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Children's Classic -- the Greatest Pookie, February 2, 2011

By 

John Gough "John Gough - Deakin University" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pookie Puts the World Right (Paperback)

Ivy L. Wallace was, in the 1950s, a popular British children's author-illustrator. I know of at least one Wallace novel for older children, but Wallace is probably best known for her exceptional large-format flying rabbit and fairies books about Pookie (the flying rabbit).
However she may be better remembered for the British TV-show spin-off (I type this from memory) "The Animal Bookshelf", based on stuffed-toy animal characters who had their own small-format book series, who first appeared in "Pookie and the Gypsies".
This is a vivid circus adventure, in which Pookie is captured by passing gypsies who have a circus with performing animals. The animals include two stuffed-toys, Stripey the zebra, and Getup the giraffe (whose legs have lost some stuffing so he continually slumps down and has to be told to "Get up"). There is also a live mouse, called Kinker, because his tail was once caught in a mouse-trap, and permanently kinked. The stuffed-toys, initially kidnapped like Pookie, are eventually reunited with their rightful owner", a real boy called Timothy. Pookie also escapes the circus, and is reunited with Belinda, the real woodcutter's daughter.
Pookie himself was introduced in the first of the Pookie series of books, naturally called "Pookie".
Initially he is a baby rabbit, born into an ordinary rabbit family. The full-page picture of Pookie and his family in their underground home is a homage to Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit", although more rabbity and less rabbits-as-almost-people than in Potter's books.
But Pookie himself is not ordinary. This is an Ugly Duckling story: for some magical reason, Pookie is born with tiny wings on his back. At first these are seen as something unnatural and shameful. He is forced to wear them wrapped tightly in ribbons. But one special moonlit night Pookie sees fairies (with wings) dancing and flying, and longs to join them.
He decides to leave his family and seek his fortune. This leads him to meet a variety of woodland creatures, including gnomes and pixies, along with ordinary rabbits, owls, and so on.
Just as Enid Blyton's classic character Noddy meets Big Ears, Pookie meets Nommy-nee the Elf, who offers him somewhere to stay.
The full-page picture of the Pixie market is beautifully detailed, along with the narrative explanation of the clothing and food sold at the market. Wallace makes honey buns sound absolutely delicious!
But Pookie is disheartened by the characters he meets who belittle him for his wings -- and he is still unable to fly.
At the darkest moment of "Pookie", as winter approaches, and Pookie faces starvation, still not having found his fortune (whatever that may be), the sad little winged-rabbit resolves to throw himself off a hillock. But the gentle wind takes him, and by (happy)chance he is rescued by Belinda, the woodcutter's kind daughter. Nurtured by Belinda, Pookie finds that, when he is loved his wings grow and strengthen, and he is able to fly.
"Pookie" ends, like Hans Christian Anderon's "Ugly Duckling", with Pookie finding a happy permanent home, and a cosy bed by the fireplace, sleeping in Belinda's satin-lined neddlework basket.
If "Pookie" had been the only book by Ivy L. Wallace, she should be remembered as a great author-illustrator for this book alone.
Despite the obvious influence of Arthur Rackham on her vision of the woodland and its animal and fairy folk, Wallace's art (often full-page, in glorious detail and glowing colors -- similar to Australia's Peg Maltby, although Maltby never had a substantial narrative to support her children's picture-book art) avoids the gnarled twiggy spookiness of Rackham.
Sadly, during the 1970s and 1980s, the "Pookie" books went out of print.
Years later, when the "Animal Book Shelf" became a TV hit, and it was possible to reprint the "Pookie" books, the original artwork and printing blocks had been lost. Undaunted, Wallace personally recreated the paintings. But by then, approaching old age, Wallace's hand lacked its earlier precision.
Reprinted and repainted is better than being out of print, but not quite as good as the originals.
Sad, indeed.
What about "Pookie Puts the World Right"? imaginative
This is a simply amazing book, tackling huge life-issues, albeit, within a child's imaginative world.
The story begins with the onset of autumn in Pookie's woodland. The rich artwork is a homage to the bright colors of autumn.
But as winter nears there is a terrible storm. (This may partly recall the real-life huge storm in Britain around 1952 -- a possible inspiration for Magdalena Eldon's equally outstanding "Snow Bumble", published around the same time.)
Little animals who were settling down to hibernate for winter have their homes shattered as trees are uprooted and burrows flooded. Fortunately Belinda is able to provide shelter, and Pookie can fly around the devastated wood, searching out the homeless and injured.
Pookie is outraged. He resolves to take his tiny rabbit protest to the brutal winter wind.
Courageously, Pookie flies north, until, nearing the end of his strength, he encounters the spirit of the Winter.
The picture of this Winter (or North Wind -- reminiscent of George Macdonald's nineteenth century classic children's fantasy "At the Back of the North Wind" -- a harrowing tale of mortality) is Rackhamesque, but utterly convincing -- chilling, bleak, icy grey, sharp nosed, prick-eared -- less a demon and more a nature god of ferocious power.
Pookie confronts the Winter spirit, presenting claims that the terrible storm was cruel.
Against this complaint -- and this is the moral heart of the great tale -- the Winter spirit explains that there is a natural cycle in life that includes winter, as a way of clearing the thick growth of summer, and preparing for the fresh rebirth of spring. Moreover, the Winter spirit adds, the animals who lost their houses had chosen weak trees, or had not made good enough burrows. They may have lost their homes, but they did so because their homes were unreasonably vulnerable.
My own prose summary of this moving exchange between Pookie and the Winter spirit is lame, by comparison with Wallace's clarity and emotional and rational strength.
Far from home, exhausted, and yet realising that everything the Winter spirit has said is true, Pookie is close to death.
Happily the Winter spirit is good at heart, and magically returns Pookie, safe, and wiser, to Belinda's cottage. Pookie wakes, grateful, and is able to pass on the cautionary advice of the Winter spirit to his woodland friends.
Although the eventual redemption of Pookie is not as extreme as the literal death and resurrection of Margery Williams Bianco's classic "Velveteen Rabbit", the moral themes of these two books are similar, and equally powerful.
I can certainly understand that some child-readers may find this book frightening. I know that, in the mid-1950s when I read it as a child, I loved this book, along with other Pookie books I was lucky to have.
I have never seen any mention of Ivy L. Wallace in any study of children's literature or picture-story books. Perhaps this is because she was too commercially popular, or seen as a sentimental author. Perhaps critics wilfully neglect authors whose books are part of an episodic series, rather than a coherent sequence. But in my opinion this is a huge critical oversight that ought to be redressed.
Wallace, with "Pookie" and "Pookie Puts the World Right", is one of the great children's authors.
John Gough -- Deakin University -- [e-mail]

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beware of this book., September 8, 2005

By 

David C. Hobday "realist, hopefully" (Central Coast NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pookie Puts the World Right (Paperback)

I read Pookie PWR when I was about 8. I found it so sad that although I wanted to read it again, I never did becuase even though I knew there was a happy ending, I knew I'd be crying getting to it. I guess we're very sensitive when we're kids. I don't know whether it's good or bad for us to read very moving accounts when we're very young.
Perhaps you should let your kids read it and judge their reaction.