Is there a difference? YES! There's just something nicer about the original. I love the stories, the poems and illustrations. But of course, I guess if it wasn't for Disney, Pooh wouldn't be as possible.
A. A. Milne created Pooh from the imagination of his child, Christopher Robin (yep, the boy in his stories is based on his son) and his stuffed bear.
You would think for a character so popular that there would be so many books out there about Pooh Bear, but in fact, Milne only wrote two and two verse books of poems about the characters.
So here, in my much delight, is this compilation of both books and both verse books in just ONE book! Plus all the original illustartions by E.H. Shepherd in color. I do have this large book plus I have the single copies of the Winnie-The-Pooh and The House On Pooh Corner.
I absolutely love the original pooh stories. Each book of course is in chapters, but they are set up that each chapter is a single adventure. This makes it easy to read to your child every night without having to read a whole book or stop without hanging on the edge.
The stories are so cute and, in my opinion, would still captivate children of this generation including adults.
(Disney's books and episodes are based off the original stories)
So why only four Pooh books?
Milne was actually quite annoyed of the popularity. He loved being able to write what he wanted and how he wanted but I guess with everyone loving the pooh books, everyone wanted him to write this certain way. Plus, his son was getting older, so he was losing his inspiration.
In the 1930's, Milne gave the rights to his characters to Stephen Slesinger who was such a marketing expert, I believe he deserves big credit for making Pooh so worldwide. After he passed, his widow took over the business and gave certain rights to Disney to develop TV shows, movies and books.
What is it about Pooh bear that I find so intriguing? I love the fact that he used his son as inspiration. I mean, really...even games that were played in the stories were real games that were played by Christopher Robin. Even the other characters like Piglet, Roo, Tigger, etc. were all based on his sons other stuffed animals. Do you even want to know how Winnie the Pooh got his name? Well, you got to read the book, it explains it in the first chapter. Christopher Robin was even quoted that his dad did not write these stories for children or for adults. He wrote it for him.
How and where to buy? I highly recommend buying the complete book, this will save you a lot of money. The complete book has:
Winnie-the-Pooh
The House on Pooh Corner
When We Were Very Young
Now We Are Six
The cheapest place you will find this book is on Thriftbooks.com (where I got my copy) for $4.33. If you buy it from Amazon, expect to pay at least $13 for a decent copy.
If you choose to buy each individual book, it will cost you about $3.50 to $4 for each one.
Interesting facts:
Disney is credit of giving Winnie the Pooh the red shirt
Christopher Robin when he was young didn't like the fact that his dad wrote a book based on him. He was teased in school from it and claimed his dad was basically riding his shoulders
The original stuffed animals of Christopher that the stories came from can be seen at the New York Public Library except for Roo. Christopher lost him in the 30s.
The One Hundred Acre Woods is based off a real place in Sussex, England and has become a tourist attraction.
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