The Enchanted Places by Christopher Milne

Ratings:
Age Group: 12+ Availability: 5/10 Cleanliness: 10/10 Overall: ****

Review:

The full title of this week's book is The Enchanted Places: A Memoir Of The Real Christopher Robin And Winnie-The-Pooh, which should give you some idea of what the book is about. For those who like the Pooh stories, it is an enlightening book that gives the reader a deeper view into the world of the books. It also tells about the real Christopher Robin's childhood and how his father wrote the books to try and engage with his son during a time when parents were not involved much in their childrens' lives. Mr. Milne also tells in the book of the house he grew up in and the woods where it all started. He recounts as well how he hated to be identified with the Christopher Robin of the stories. The association with the books lasted all his life and caused the shy boy much grief at school and in daily life. Christopher Milne eventually outgrew Pooh and took up cricket, an action which I applaud as a fellow cricket fan. He later owned and operated his own bookshop in Dartmouth, England, where my own father met him many years later.

The Enchanted Places is an interesting and informative read, both for the Winnie-The-Pooh aspect of it and the pre-WWII view of childhood. Mr. Milne has an good style that serves to draw the reader along and the entire book is under two-hundred pages, making it a good school read for older children once they have finished the original Pooh books.

The Enchanted Places: A Memoir Of The Real Christopher Robin and Winnie-The-Pooh By Christopher Milne, Published in the U.S.A. by E.P. Dutton & Co., 1974 and in Canada by McClelland and Stewart, Limited.