It might surprise you to learn that Winnie the Pooh was a swan before he was a bear. A real, cheeky swan who became A. A. Milne (January 18, 1882 - January 31, 1956) tells us in his first book of children's verse, When We Were Very Young, a particular friend to Milne's young son.

Christopher Robin who feeds this swan in the mornings, has given him the name of "Pooh." This is a very fine name for a swan, because, if you call him and he doesn't come (which is a thing swans are good at), then you can pretend that you were just saying "Pooh!" to show how little you wanted him. Well, I should have told you that there are six cows who come down to Pooh's lake every afternoon to drink, and of course, they say "Moo" as they come. So I thought to myself one fine day, walking with my friend Christopher Robin, "Moo rhymes with Pooh! Surely there is a bit of poetry to be got out of that?"

With the simplicity of truth as his starting point,   Start from truth, or said differently, write from what you know, was promoted as a means of artistic beginnings by both  Ernest Hemingway and E. B. White in their own ways. British writer A. A. Milne created the jolly, whimsical book of verse When We Were Very Young that set the tone for his subsequent, beloved Pooh characters.

There is a bear in this collection, too. Still, he only appears as "Teddy Bear" (although he demonstrates the curious, adventurous personality of the yet-to-be-created Winnie the Pooh).

A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise.
Our Teddy Bear is short and fat
Which is not to be wondered at;
He gets what exercise he can
By falling off the ottoman,
But generally seems to lack
The energy to clamber back.

Now tubbiness is just the thing
Which gets a fellow wondering;
And Teddy worried lots about
the fact that he was rather stout.
He thought: "If only I were thin!
But how does anyone begin?"
He thought: "It really isn't fair
To grudge me exercise and air."
From "Teddy Bear"

Not to fear, Bear soothes his concerns by chancing upon a picture of a rather rotund King of France and notes if such a Royal be tubby, he is in good company.

"I'm sorry for the people who sell sweet lavender 'Cos they haven't got a rabbit, not anywhere there!" from the poem "Market Square."  Illustration by Ernest H. Shepard, courtesy of the book.

Roald Dahl once suggested that his popularity as a children's book author came from the fact that he never underestimated his audience. Children were as intelligent and, strong, and curious as adults.

"What's the bravest thing you've ever said?" asked the boy. "Help," said the horse. Courtesy of Charlie MacKesy's The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

If Dahl makes adults of children, Milne does the opposite. He proposes to return us to our young innocence.

Take this lovely delight of a poem:

Happiness

John had
Great Big
Waterproof
Boots on;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Hat;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Mackintosh-
And that
(Said John)
Is
That.

Milne's repetition of "Great Big" indicates that it - not the boots nor the hat - is the source of happiness. (What parent hasn't done the same? Time to put on your yellow boots and your fluffy hat! I said this very morning.)

Or this poem is about a girl who disappears for days and returns terribly dirty but keeps her hands clean (and is so thoroughly proud of that accomplishment).

Emmeline
Came slipping between
the two tall trees at the end of the green.
We all ran up to her. "Emmeline!
Where have you been?
Where have you been?
Why, it's more than a week!" And Emmeline
Said, "Sillies, I went and saw the Queen.
She says my hands are purkickly clean!"
From "Before Tea"

In his childhood memoirs, British writer Laurie Lee stepped back into his child's shoes and imagined that world anew as an adult. He saw its immediate boundaries. “The village was the world, and its happenings all I knew,” Lee wrote in Cider with Rosie.

Milne similarly narrows his poems to a child's point of view. A child who goes to the market and regrets there are no rabbits; a child who visits Buckingham Palace and imagines tea with the King; a child who sits on the middle stair because it is halfway there.

There is little in this collection that I cannot imagine my daughter doing and, through that proxy, my young self.

Independence

I never did, I never did, I never did like
"Now take care, dear!"

I never did, I never did, I never did want
"Hold-my-hand":

I never did, I never did, I never did think much of
"Not up there, dear!"

It's no good saying it. They don't understand.

"I never did, I never did, I never did like 'Now take care, dear!'" from the poem "Independence." Illustration by Ernest H. Shepard.

To write for children, of children, we must step into the place of children. Of course, we cannot go home (and when we try, we are incredibly disappointed), so instead, we must suspend our adult selves and listen to children.   There is a line in Doris Lessing's book on cats where she mentions sitting down and being with cats and crossing the boundary of communication that separates us. I love that concept and in my experience, it applies equally to young children. Milne accompanied his son Christopher Robin and imagined his son's beautiful, curious mind.   In his exploration of the wild places and specifically, the literature of tree climbing (what a brilliant concept), Robert Macfarlane mentions Milne's famous collection of children's characters. "The team of Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin: Pooh floating on his sky-blue balloon up to the oak-top bee's nest". It is clear that the imaginative mind of Milne affects many to this day.

"Then there is another thing," Milne explains in When We Were Very Young, "You may wonder who is supposed to be saying the verses."

Is it the Author, that strange but uninteresting person, or is it Christopher Robin, or some other boy or girl, of Nurse or Hoo?... You will have to decide for yourselves. If you are not quite sure, then it is probably Hoo. I don't know if you have ever met Hoo, but he is one of those curious children who look four on Monday, and eight on Tuesday, and are really twenty-eight on Saturday, and you never know whether it is the day when he can pronounce his "r's." He had a great deal to do with these verses.

To keep one's child self so present, what a gift!

It is challenging to read When We Were Very Young and not be struck by the difference in childhood one hundred years ago versus today (cuddling bears at the zoo?!).   Not just any bear, but the one and only Winnie, named after the rather cold city of Winnipeg in Canada. Winnie came to the London Zoo via a Canadian soldier in WWI and stayed, delighting children - especially Christopher Robin Milne - until 1934. Read more in this delightful book Finding Winnie written by the Soldier's great-great granddaughter.

Some things, however, remain very much the same, which is this book's preciousness. You will see your kids in the lines, perhaps even yourself, when you were young.

"Halfway Down" Illustration by Ernest H. Shepard.

Halfway Down

Halfway down the stairs
is a stair
where i sit.
there isn't any
other stair
quite like
it.
i'm not at the bottom,
i'm not at the top;
so this is the stair
where
I always
stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up
And it isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head.
It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!

Accompany this classic with Robert MacFarlane's call for curiousness, Roald Dahl's memoir Boy (which is equally - sometimes awkwardly - silly). T. S. Eliot's odes to cats and an exploration of the sense of wonder and the delight of being read to.