childhood – BookBunnies

Sprinkles reviews Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne

Last week Sprinkles reviewed a sweet little poetry book written by A.A. Milne: When We Were Very Young. Today she reviews Now We Are Six, a sequel if there could be one for a poetry book. First published in 1927, this book was also illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard.

Sprinkles reviews Now We Are Six, written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard. — Sprinkles reviews *Now We Are Six*, written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard.

Last week I reviewed When We Were Very Young, written over a hundred years ago by A.A. Milne. Today I share with you some thoughts on another little poetry book by Milne that is almost a century old: Now We Are Six.

Now We Are Six is a perfect sequel to When We Were Very Young, and young bunnies who have enjoyed that book would definitely enjoy this book, too. In fact both Marshmallow and Caramel were gifted this book for their sixth birthdays. (Yes it was the same copy, which I think is fine. After all, Marshmallow had already graduated from being six years old when Caramel entered that age…) If you want to see what the book is like, you can see the contents in the Project Gutenberg page for the book here. But once again, I will say that the experience of holding a real copy of the book in your own hands (or paws!) is a lot more pleasant.

Before diving into the poems in the book, let me tell you that Milne’s introductions are really interesting. I am not sure the younger readers would appreciate them, but the adults reading the books definitely will. So please do not skip these; they are so fun to read!) In this introduction, we are also warned that Winnie the Pooh shows up in several of the poems. It is really neat to see Pooh’s evolution from the germ of an idea in one little poem in When We Were Very Little to a fully developed independent character who “walked through [the book] one day, looking for his friend Piglet, and sat down on some of the pages by mistake.”

Sprinkles is reading Now We Are Six, written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard. — Sprinkles is reading *Now We Are Six*, written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard.

Now the poems! There are thirty five in total. And some are indeed about Winnie the Pooh, or at least they include Pooh as one of the main actors. For example, the poem “Us Two” is about a little boy narrating his adventures and conversations with Pooh. But pooh also just happens to show up in the illustrations of poems that do not explicitly mention his name. For example “The Engineer” is about a train the narrator is trying to play with, and Pooh shows up in the illustrations waiting for a ticket and then the train itself. The little bear makes a similar appearance, that is, only in the illustrations, for the last poem of the book, “The End”, where the narrating child is excited to be six years old:

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

Another one of my favorite poems in this book is “Explained” where a little girl named Elizabeth Ann goes around trying to find out just “how God began”. the question remains unanswered for all those who are reading the poem, even though in the end Elizabeth Ann gets an answer that satisfies her.

Unlike When We Were Very Young, which seemed to be almost exclusively written for a little boy, there are quite a few little girls in this book, or possibly a single little girl, who is sometimes named Elizabeth Ann and sometimes Anne. This makes a lot of sense if you read that the book is dedicated to Anne Darlington, who was a friend of Christopher Robin, Milne’s son. The Darlingtons and the Milnes were family friends, and they seem to have hoped that their two children would perhaps eventually marry each another. But in any case, I believe that the book does benefit from having a little girl in it.

The poems are once more about play and daily life and friendship and big questions. There is also room for big feelings. For example, the very first poem, “Solitude”, reminds the reader that all children are persons of their own rights, and sometimes they too will need some space. And there are a handful of poems which are more fantastical. For example “The Knight Whose Armour Didn’t Squeak” tells the story of a knight, you guessed it, whose armor did not squeak. One day, this knight spots another one whose armor does not squeak and figures out a way to eliminate him from this competition.

The illustrations in the book are once more by Ernest Shepard and complement the book’s quirky and fun feel. All in all, this book is a joy to behold and a joy to read. I recommend it with much enthusiasm to anyone looking to find a poetry book to read or share with a young bunny!

Sprinkles recommends Now We Are Six, written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard, to anyone looking for a little poetry in their lives. — Sprinkles recommends *Now We Are Six*, written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard, to anyone looking for a little poetry in their lives.

Sprinkles reviews When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne

Today Sprinkles reviews a cute little poetry book, When We Were Very Young, written by A.A. Milne, illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard, and originally published in 1924.

Sprinkles reviews When We Were Very Young, written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard. — Sprinkles reviews *When We Were Very Young*, written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard.

Today I am excited to share with the readers of the book bunnies blog a wonderful little book of poetry, written over a hundred years ago, in 1924. If you are curious, you can read the poems in their entirety here in the Project Gutenberg page for the book. But I have to say that holding the book in your hands (or, as in my case, in your paws) is a real pleasure. The illustrations by the estimable Ernest H. Shepard are simple and yet timeless.

A.A. Milne wrote the poems in this book for his son Christopher Robin, who was four at the time. In his introduction he tells us that these verses often should be read as if they are coming from the voice of Christopher Robin or another young child, and when you read them out loud, that is almost always the feeling you get. And so I can imagine a young bunny and an adult one who loves them sitting down to read a few of them at a time and having a really wonderful time together.

There are a total of forty-four poems in the book. Many of them reflect different aspects of a young child’s life or zero in on small moments that loom large. There is a poem about the pleasure of being in the rain with waterproof outerwear (“Happiness”), another about how the four different chairs in the nursery could be different places and make for fun adventures all on their own (“Nursery Chairs”), and yet another about the joys of simply being outside without a purpose to go any particular place (“Spring Morning”). Then there are more playful poems about made-up characters and their stories. There is for example a poem about an elephant who is friends with a lion who is friends with a goat who is friends with a snail (“The Four Friends”), another about a dormouse who loves geraniums and delphiniums but is prescribed by a doctor to grow chrysanthemums instead (“The Dormouse and the Doctor”), and yet another about an alchemist who after years of effort is still unable to get it quite right (“The Alchemist”).

Sprinkles is reading When We Were Very Young, written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard. — Sprinkles is reading *When We Were Very Young*, written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard.

Two of my other favorites in the book were the one about rice pudding (unsurprisingly named “Rice Pudding”) and the one titled “Lines and Squares” about why you should stay in the squares and never step on the lines when walking on a sidewalk–for otherwise a bear will eat you!

And then there is the thirty-eighth poem, “Teddy Bear”, which starts with:

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

And then there are twelve more stanzas with similar rhyme and goofiness. The poem finishes in the way it started, but with a twist:

A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise.
Our Teddy Bear is short and fat
Which is not to be wondered at.
But do you think it worries him
To know that he is far from slim?
No, just the other way about--
He's proud of being short and stout.

And thus we see the birth of a little creature who would eventually become the world’s most famous bear: Winnie the Pooh! Ernest Shepard was apparently thinking of the teddy bear his son had while drawing the illustrations for the poem. These illustrations and Christopher Robin’s own toys together led to A.A. Milne creating the Winnie the Pooh character in the stories in the next couple years.

But even if you are not intrigued by Winnie the Pooh or his origin story, the poems in this book are lovely. And they are such a pleasure to read! Their simple melodies and sweet themes would also make them wonderful candidates for reading out loud with a younger bunny in your life. In other words, as Marshmallow would put it: if you are searching for a neat book to read out loud with the young bunny in your life or if you are simply looking for a lovely poetry collection about the magic of childhood to bring a smile to your face and a bit of childlike joy into your heart, then this might be the book for you!

Sprinkles recommends When We Were Very Young, written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard, to all who love the littlest bunnies in their families and want to read poetry with them. — Sprinkles recommends *When We Were Very Young*, written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard, to all who love the littlest bunnies in their families and want to read poetry with them.

Sprinkles reviews A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson and Tasha Tudor

About a year ago, Sprinkles reviewed Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, a book showcasing Robert Frost’s famous poem with beautiful illustrations by Susan Jeffers. Since then, she has been collecting poetry books suitable for young bunnies. Caramel reviewed one of those books (This is a Poem That Heals Fish, written originally in French by Jean-Pierre Siméon and illustrated by Olivier Tallec.) just a couple days ago. Today Sprinkles reviews another family favorite, A Child’s Garden of Verses, a beautiful collection of poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1885. The edition Sprinkles is talking about was illustrated by Tasha Tudor and first published in 1981.

Sprinkles reviews A Child's Garden of Verses, a collection of children's poems written by Robert Louis Stevenson and illustrated by Tasha Tudor. — Sprinkles reviews *A Child’s Garden of Verses*, a collection of children’s poems written by Robert Louis Stevenson and illustrated by Tasha Tudor.

Many know Robert Louis Stevenson as the author of classics like Treasure Island (1883) and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). At the book bunnies household, he is better known as the person who wrote A Child’s Garden of Verses, a beautiful collection of children’s poems that we read out loud together. In the edition we have, there are beautiful and simply elegant illustrations on each page, that only add to the experience of reading these simple but evocative poems out loud.

There are one or two poems displayed on each page, and the illustrator accompanies them with topical imagery that takes us deep into the story unfolding in the poems. For example, the page that displays the poem “Pirate Story” is decorated with images of three children playing pirates. At the top center of the page they are sitting or standing on a makeshift boat in the middle of a garden with a swing, playing pirates. The cattle that show up in the third stanza show up at the bottom of the page as the three children flee with glee.

One of my favorites is the short poem “The Swing” which in only three stanzas of four lines each rhythmically and authentically captures the joy of swinging back and forth on a swing. Here is how it starts:

How do you like to go up on a swing
       Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
       Ever a child can do? 
                     -Robert Louis Stevenson, "The Swing"

Another favorite “My Shadow” has its own Wikipedia page. Here is a stanza:

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow; 
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball, 
And he sometimes gets so little that there’s none of him at all.
                     -Robert Louis Stevenson, "My Shadow"

Sprinkles is reading A Child's Garden of Verses, a collection of children's poems written by Robert Louis Stevenson and illustrated by Tasha Tudor. — Sprinkles is reading *A Child’s Garden of Verses*, a collection of children’s poems written by Robert Louis Stevenson and illustrated by Tasha Tudor.

A Child’s Garden of Verses collects together sixty four poems. First there are about forty poems, on topics ranging from rain to singing, from travel to bedtime. Then There is a collection of nine poems collected under the heading of “The Child Alone”. Stevenson seems to have been a rather sickly child (he dedicates the whole collection to his childhood nurse Allison Cunningham), and the poems in this section seem to be perhaps more personal than some of the others; you can hear the solitude of a child who had to remain alone and in bed for a lot of time. They are not unhappy poems, but rather, they explore a sick child’s healthy imagination and are quite fun to read. There is then a section titled “Garden Days” containing eight poems about nature and playing outside. Finally a section titled “Envoys” finds poems individually addressing Stevenson’s mother, his friends and other special people. The book ends with a poem addressed “To Any Reader” where the poet reminds us that grownups, like the poet himself, were all children once, and all children today will one day grow up:

As from the house your mother sees
you playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look,
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play. 
But do not think you can at all, 
By knocking on the window, call 
That child to hear you. He intent 
Is all on his play-business bent. 
He does not hear; he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book. 
For, long ago, the truth to say, 
He has grown up and gone away, 
And it is but a child of air 
That lingers in the garden there.
                     -Robert Louis Stevenson, "To Any Reader"

As you can see from the examples I have already provided, poems in A Child’s Garden of Verses are mostly in simple poetic forms and simple rhyme. This makes these poems a lot of fun to read out loud with young ones, and their topics, all themes and topics relevant and familiar to young children, make them accessible.

The poems in A Child’s Garden of Verses were written more than 140 years ago and as such are now in public domain. So you can find the whole collection online; see, for example, this page or this page. But we read books not only to access the words from their creator but also to hold on to them in the most visceral way, in a book that can be held, touched, seen, smelled, and shared.

In short, books like A Child’s Garden of Verses can be great opportunities to add more poetry to your family time. I hope you will give this book a try!

Sprinkles encourages all bunnies young and old to read more poetry together; books like A Child's Garden of Verses, a collection of children's poems written by Robert Louis Stevenson and illustrated by Tasha Tudor, can be great opportunities to add more poetry to your family time. — Sprinkles encourages all bunnies young and old to read more poetry together; books like *A Child’s Garden of Verses*, a collection of children’s poems written by Robert Louis Stevenson and illustrated by Tasha Tudor, can be great opportunities to add more poetry to your family time.