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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Pooh sequel evokes atmosphere, humour of classic Milne books

By: Helen Norrie

Posted: 10/18/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Christopher Robin cycles in illustration from new Pooh book. (TRUSTEES OF THE POOH PROPERTIES)

Is it possible to write a successful sequel to a classic book?

Many have tried and failed, but Return to the Hundred Acre Wood by England's David Benedictus with illustrations by Mark Burgess (Dutton/Penguin, 201 pages, $25 hardcover) may be an exception.

Benedictus evokes the atmosphere of innocent childhood and gentle humour that was in the original Winnie the Pooh books by A.A. Milne, and Burgess does a remarkable job of copying the characters in Ernest Shepard's traditional artwork.

The difference, by necessity, is in the person of Christopher Robin, who has been upgraded from a pinafore-wearing nursery child to a modern young man wearing shorts and a shirt and riding a bicycle.

If the alteration in Christopher Robin's appearance bothers you, don't let it. His personality, of gentle acceptance and delight in his forest friends, remains the same.

Owl is still vain and rather pompous, Rabbit is sensible, Pooh is lovable and addicted to honey and Eeyore is grumpy but basically kind (he lets Piglet sleep in his shadow when it's hot).

There's even a new character, Lottie the Otter, who is slinky and brainy and who fits in with the other animals as if she'd always been there.

Benedictus introduces several new adventures and even new poems, which will delight those readers who enjoyed Pooh's earlier rhymes.

The only thing missing -- a reference to the great Canadian prairie city that Winnie is named after! Maybe in the next sequel.

Newfoundland author Joan Clark tackles a controversial topic in her latest young adult novel, Road to Bliss (Doubleday Canada, 288 pages, $15 paperback).

Jim Hobbs is 15 and fed up with the noise and impersonality of city life. He hitchhikes west and ends up living in an abandoned cabin on an Alberta property next to a strict religious sect.

When he discovers that Miriam, the young woman he has met from the colony, is about to be married against her wishes to an older man, he must risk everything, even his life, to help her. In the process, Jim learns a lot about himself as well as the religious community.

This is a thoughtful novel that will appeal to readers 12 and up, although Jim acts older than 15. Clark is the author of a number of other YA novels, including The Victory of Geraldine Gull and Latitudes of Melt.

For another coming-of-age story set in a very different locale, this one non-fiction, My Maasai Life by Robin Wiszowaty (Me to We/Greystone, 270 pages, $23 paperback) is the account of a 20-year-old's attempt to find meaning in her life.

This quest takes her from a comfortable home in Illinois to a mud-floored hut in Kenya. Although Robin's memoir of her transformation from carefree co-ed to a dedicated worker in Kenya is sometimes self-absorbed, it is also an amazing story of her surviving malaria and typhoid, and an introduction to a foreign culture.

Robin becomes so taken by Maasai life that she is now the program director of Free the Children Kenya and has chosen to make her home in Africa.

She also discusses the problem of criticizing foreign customs such as polygamy and female circumcision without fully understanding the culture. This book should be required reading for any young person who, like Robin, feels they want to make a difference in an underdeveloped country.

Winnipeg writer Helen Norrie is a former teacher-librarian whose column appears on the third Sunday of the month.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 18, 2009 B9

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