Growing Up with Christopher Robin – Daily Quote

/ JoHawkTheWriter

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I remember reading the Winnie the Pooh stories as a child. Christopher Robin’s tales made me jealous. I thought it would be wonderful to have a stuffed teddy bear who could talk to me. How glorious to escape to the Hundred Acre Wood for marvelous adventures with his loyal animal friends.

Someone gave me an overstuffed purple rabbit with a carrot tattoo on his left foot. The bunny was mute, or maybe he was a stoner. I was six, what did I know? My Hundred Acre Wood comprised a single scrawny apple tree. Each summer, it produced terrible green apples so sour my entire body shook for a week after only one bite. Sour Patch, Lemon Drops, and Warheads didn’t compare with those little green bombs. When the hard, inedible fruit matured, they fell to the ground and dissolved into rotting brown heaps. The wasps loved them and aggressively protected their treasure. They transformed the backyard into a war zone, and they launched air raids against anyone who dared to enter their occupied territory.

Christopher Robin represented a fantasy. His story presented a believable lie spoon-fed to gullible children. I often wondered about Christopher Robin’s life outside of the Hundred Acre Wood. Was he a lost boy trying to cope in a chaotic adult-centric world? I considered he had more in common with Hansel and Peter Pan than Pooh revealed. Yes, if Pooh came to visit, we would have long discussions which would require a tasty morsel, and a nap, to keep up our strength.

Did you find a childhood story difficult to swallow?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

25 thoughts on “Growing Up with Christopher Robin – Daily Quote”

  3. I didn’t discover Winnie the Pooh as a child. Until the age of ten, I lived in East London, not far from Hackney Downs and Clissold Park – not quite The Hundred Acre Wood or Ashdown Forest. Then we moved to the suburbs, close to the urban reaches of Epping Forest, so for me, and later for my kids, it was dog-walking territory.
    The Pooh stories were among those I read to my children at bedtime, but those bedtime stories merge fuzzily now in my head. By then, the pictures in theirs were probably Disney.
    Last night I had two grandsons here overnight and read them Tigger’s tree story in bed. I’d forgotten how much the humour is over the head of the average five- and seven-year-old: possibly a reason for the stories’ longevity. (I used to enjoy the early TV series’ of Basil Brush for the same reason. You could hear the cameramen guffawing in the background.)
    Tiggers Can’t Climb Trees was quite long. In spite of my effort at voices, which the older one appreciated, I thought it probably boring for the younger one. By the time I’d finished, he was asleep – which is, after all, the point, isn’t it?

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    • I think you are right Cathy. Part of the longevity of any children’s book is its appeal to the parents. After all, they are the ones who are often times forced to read the same book, night after night.

      I love the idea of you reading the same story to your children and now your grandchildren. Thank you for sharing. It is truly special.

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  4. Ugh. We had a crab-apple tree in the section of the yard I had to mow. In the fall it was terrifying. Bees everywhere, with me darting in and out with the mower. The fanciful books I loved as a kid were the Borrower books. I day dreamed endlessly about tiny people living in my walls.

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  5. We had an apple tree as well, and no one got to enjoy the fruit as much as the bees.

    As for Christopher Robin, well, I was named Christopher because my mother really liked the stories. When I was a child, I wrestled with how close I might be (in several ways) to the boy with the pageboy haircut, wearing buckle-shoes. When I grew up and especially when I became an English teacher, I decided that being named for a literary character was all right.

    I did read what turns out to be the first volume of his autobiography. He did struggle with the fame and felt put upon with all the strangers coming to his home. But there was a hundred-acre wood that I believe he enjoyed very much. His mother used to walk it by herself, telling Christopher to greet her when she got back as if she had been gone for a long, long while.

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    • I do recall hearing that Christopher Robin had issues with being the little boy in the book. It must have been very interesting growing up knowing you had been named after him. Thank you for sharing your story.

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  6. I did not hear many stories growing up but I read these books to my children and I found the simple stories extremely satisfying. Simple, pleasant and filled with many great quotes that I still enjoy to this day. My kids did wonder where Christopher Robin’s parents were and thought they didn’t care about him if he could be gone for hours without knowing where he was 🙂

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  7. i think i was quite the opposite, I believed everything I read and it made my world brighter and bigger, being a sick child for a lot of my growing up years, books and imaginary friends were my companions. I guess i never bothered about the realities of the stories as real life was quite tough.

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