To grow up in the shadow of a famous father is a difficult enough burden for anyone, but the late Christopher Milne also had to cope with being the real child who inspired his father's most famous work, Winnie the Pooh. As a writer himself, he has used his books of memoirs to affirm Christopher Milne as a person separate from his father and from Christopher Robin. Those four books, including two that were never published in the U.S., are combined and excerpted in this one volume, giving a fuller sense of Milne's life as a whole. This complete sweep of his life, with an introduction by his widow, allows the reader to see him as an introspective, independent child, certainly, but also as the husband, father, bookseller, and writer that he became. All in all, he was much more than the playmate of a bear. - Danise Hoover; 304p-
Drawn from Christopher Milne's four books, two of which have not had American editions, these reflections reveal a many-sided man who came to accept, but never embraced, his literary effigy. In 33 chapters and essays, 'the most famous boy in all of children's literature' steps out of the long shadow cast by the character of Christopher Robin to provide glimpses of his remote father, A.A. Milne, to muse about war and unwanted fame, to observe with an amateur naturalist's eye the Devonshire countryside where he lived (he died in 1996), and to remember with love and affection his daughter Clare, afflicted with cerebral palsy. The excerpts are not solely aimed at young readers, but will provide useful, often intriguing material on the Milnes for those doing research. (Memoir. 13+)-
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