When We Were Very Young

The poems that gave the world Winnie-the-Pooh began here, in a father's tender game with his small son. A.A. Milne wrote these forty-five verses to amuse Christopher Robin during walks and car rides, and in doing so, he captured something extraordinary: the entire world as it looks to a very young child. Here is a kingdom of teddy bears who refuse to bathe, a line that moves too slowly, ducks who require polite interrogation before one decides to stay. Here too is the real Christopher Robin, introduced to us as a boy with a pet swan named Pooh, a name that rhymed with the cattle's "moo" and thus, Milne winks, earned the right to become legendary. The magic of these poems lies in their perfect pitch. They speak not down to children but with them, using the rhythms and logic and sudden gravity of small people. A bathtub becomes a sea where brave bears sail. Going to bed requires the solemnity of a state occasion. They are poems to be read aloud, to be memorized, to become the language of a child's inner life. This is Milne's gift: he remembered what it felt like to be very young, and he wrote the verses he wished he'd had then. Generations of parents have found in these pages the exact words to make a child feel seen, and loved, and ready for sleep.