Return to the Hundred Acre Wood

Ok, so its time for another book review, faithful readers. This time the subject of my review will be "Return to the Hundred Acre Wood" by David Benedictus. Anybody who has had any sort of decent childhood will pick up on two things about this book straight away - firstly, that the Hundred Acre Wood is the setting for all of the Winnie the Pooh adventures and secondly, that the Winnie the Pooh books were written by A.A. Milne rather than by some random guy called David Benedictus.

I was given a copy of "Return to the Hundred Acre Wood" for my birthday only a few weeks after it was published. The world of Winnie the Pooh fans had apparently been waiting with baited breath for the first ever Winnie the Pooh sequel to be approved by the estate of A.A. Milne - I was not waiting with baited breath. I was blissfully unaware that there was such a book coming. Fortunately for me (and for you as you now get to read this delightful book review) my brother was not so ignorant.

I would like to say firstly that the amazing genius of A.A. Milne is an extremely hard act to follow and any man that is willing to put himself up for that kind of scrutiny is either very brave or an egotistical maniac. I am not sure with category David Benedictus belongs in.

It doesn't really matter. What matters is that, for me at any rate, he did not stand up to that scrutiny. Its like when you put Orlando Bloom with Johnny Depp in the Pirates movies. Yes, Orlando is reasonably good looking, yes he gets a couple of good lines, yes he gets an interesting character, but put him on a screen with Johnny Depp and no one is looking at the girly-boy eunuch (sorry Captain Sparrow added that last bit, not me). Its really not fair on poor old Orlando, or in this case Benedictus.

I'm going to break it down into 3 vital parts of a Winnie the Pooh adventures for you:
1. Characters.
Benedictus did manage to keep the charm of the original characters, BUT then he did the absolutely unthinkable - he added a NEW character. A NEW character! Now, this isn't without precedent as Gopher (a regular in the Disney Winnie the Pooh) is not in the original books, but just because someone else has committed the sacrilege too, doesn't mean that it is right. I actually quite like both Gopher and Lottie (the Benedictus character), but they are rather unnecessary and, when it comes to my A.A. Milne, I am a purist.

Gopher

Lottie

2. Storylines.
Again, here Benedictus falls short of my exacting standards. Roughly half the book had quite good storylines (each chapter is a separate story) and the other half didn't.
3. Hums and Poems.
An absolutely vital part of the works by A.A. Milne are the poems and hums that Pooh writes and hums at unsuspecting visitors (usually Piglet, but often also Eeyore). I will give you a sample of one of the least brilliant of A.A. Milne's hums followed by the best of Benedictus' hums and you can see for yourself.

Hunny
It's very, very funny,
'Cos I know I had some honey :
'Cos it had a label on, Saying HUNNY,
A goloptious full-up pot too,
And I don't know where it's got to,
No, I don't know where it's gone--
Well, it's funny.
- A.A. Milne.


Counting Honey
If you want to count your honey,
You must put it in a row,
In the sun if it is sunny,
If it’s snowy in the snow.

And you’ll know when you have counted
How much honey you have got.
Yes, you’ll know what the amount is
- David Benedictus

Now for comparison, see one of AA Milne's better hums

An Anxious Pooh Song

3 Cheers for Pooh!

(For who?)
For Pooh -
(Why, what did he do?)
I thought you knew;
He saved his friend from a wetting!
3 Cheers for Bear!
(For where?)
For Bear -
He couldn't swim,
But he rescued him!
(He rescued who?)
Oh, listen, do!
I am talking of Pooh!
(Of who?)
Of Pooh!
(I'm sorry, I keep forgetting).
Well, Pooh was a Bear of Enormous Brain
(Just say it again!)
Of enormous brain -
(Of enormous what?)
Well, he ate a lot,
And I don't know if he could swim or not,
But he managed to float
On a sort of boat
(On a sort of what?)
Well, a sort of pot -
So now let's give three hearty cheers!
(So now let's give him three hearty whiches?)
And hope he'll be with us for years and years,
And grow in health and wisdom and riches!
3 Cheers for Pooh!
(For who?)
For Pooh -
3 Cheers for Bear
(For where?)
For Bear -
3 Cheers for the wonderful Winnie-the-Pooh!
(Just tell me, somebody - WHAT DID HE DO?)

See the difference?

Now a note on the illustrations.
In the original Pooh adventures, the illustrations were handled by E.H. Shepard and looked like this:
In "Return to the Hundred Acre Wood" Mark Burgess did the illustrations. I have no problem with the new illustrations and think he did a good job. They look like this:

Now, to wrap it all up there are a couple of things I need to say.
Firstly, thank-you, Rob, for giving me the book (check out the comma usage in the first half of that sentences - pretty spectacular). Being harsh on the book does not mean that I don't appreciate it - I'm quite glad that I got the chance to pick it apart like this.

Secondly, I would like to mention the fact that I read the book with a positive attitude - rather than starting with a dim view of the book and only finding proof that I was right, I was actually quite predisposed to like the book and it caught me a bit by surprise when I found that I didn't.

Thirdly, should you read the book? Yes, of course you should. Just because I am a picky purist with Pooh stories (lovely alliteration) doesn't mean that you should be guided by my feelings towards the book and decide to not read it on principle. BUT before you do read it (or at least straight afterwards) get your hands on a copy of the A.A. Milne works and refresh your memory of what a real Pooh adventure is like. Don't forget that the very best way to read Winnie the Pooh is chapter by chapter as a bedtime story out loud (you can read out loud to yourself, but it is probably more fun if you are reading to someone else. I personally have issues with reading Winnie the Pooh out loud because there are a couple of points in the books where I LOL and occasionally even ROFL so whoever I'm reading to has to patiently wait for me to regain my composure and continue with the story.)

All in all, the book gets three stars ***
- an extra one just because it is a Winnie the Pooh. It only really deserved two.