This Bear is Mischievous

It’s difficult to know quite what to think about the news that there’s to be an authorized sequel to the Winnie-the-Pooh books. On the one hand, we’ve survived for eighty years with just the two books of stories, and those of us who love them continue to return on a regular and frequent basis to the texts.

Then again, does it make any difference? There already exists a massive collection of unofficial spin-off works, taking Pooh into everything from Latin to leather, and the word ‘official’ in this context is frankly meaningless – neither AA Milne nor Christopher Robin Milne is any position to authorize anything, and no one else’s word is worth tuppence.

But, on the other hand, there is the fact that the man chosen for this task is David Benedictus. And I’ve had a fondness for him for some time. Apart from anything else, one of his early novels has perhaps the greatest cover illustration of the 1960s:

There’s a new angle for Pooh in there somewhere, surely?