Op-Ed Contributor
The Library at Pooh Corner
By Jennifer Finney Boylan
Published: December 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/opinion/22boylan.html?_r=2&ref=opinion (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/opinion/22boylan.html?_r=2&ref=opinion)
EIGHTY-FIVE years ago this Christmas Eve, The London Evening News published a short story about a boy and a bear written by an assistant editor at Punch named A. A. Milne, thus engendering four children's books, a slew of films and videos and a merchandising empire estimated to be worth more to the Disney Corporation than Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto combined.
(Not to mention providing the inspiration for Dorothy Parker's most withering review, when she responded, in her Constant Reader column, to Pooh's line that "pom" makes singing more "hummy" with the comment, "And it is that word 'hummy,' my darlings, that marks the first place ... at which Tonstant Weeder Fwowed up.")
It also resulted in my finding myself in tears last Christmas in the Stephen A. Schwarzman building of the New York City Public Library.