Oh! To Be A Child

I had the great fortune this past semester of taking the module Classics of British Children's Literature. I didn't really get a chance to blog about it before, but, looking back, I can honestly say it was the most delightful module ever! We studied books like The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, Winnie The Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, and finally Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The aim of the module was basically to understand what made a classic, and also to see if there were any underlying adult themes in these children's books. I'm sure you can imagine that most books had some deep, underlying message: Lewis Carroll had an incredibly deep infatuation with chldhood and the child girl, C.S Lewis's book acted as an allegory for his undying Christian beliefs.

The only text studied that seemed to have no ulterior motive, no underlying messages about morality or religion; the only text that seemed to be designed solely for children's entertaiment, was the beloved Winnie The Pooh.

Spending a seminar trying to analyse the folly of Pooh and friends seemed like a waste of time. The group tried to come up with some intricate reasoning behind the stories, some complex story as to why AA Milne created these characters, but we all came up blank, and decided that the Pooh stories were the most innocent out of all the novels we studied.

For this reason, we salute you, A A Milne. We salute you, Pooh Bear. We salute you, Christopher Robin. We Salute you, Tigger, Piglet, Roo, Kanga, Owl, Eeyore and Rabbit. We salute you for keeping our childhoods innocent and entertained.


There are also some really cute quotes in Winnie-The-Pooh:

"If there ever comes a day when we can't be together keep me in your heart, I'll stay there forever."

"It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words, but rather short, easy words like 'What about lunch?' "

"You can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesnt count"

Couldn't your heart just melt?!?

PS. The original illustrations are sooo much better than the Disney ones, wouldn't you agree?