Tag Archives: Winnie the Pooh

Poohing in the Sun

Tuesday June has opened in Sewanee, Tennessee with four gorgeous days so I’m sharing one of Pooh’s nature poems. A. A. Milne’s self-deprecating poet describes sensory input blending together in a moment of pure bliss. Happy Summer! Oh, the butterflies are flying, Now the winter days are dying, And the primroses are trying To be […]

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2014, Eeyore, & Silver Linings

We can learn from Eeyore to be more forgiving of our public servants.

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Portrait of the Lesbian as a Young Artist

Proust and James Joyce were particularly important in helping Alison Bechdel negotiate her complex relations with her father.

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Books about People Reading Books

Books about books give readers a sense that they are part of a larger community.

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The Rising Floodwaters of Sadness

My father is dying. One of his last acts was to find an A. A. Milne passage about Sewanee’s incessant rain for the local newspaper.

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On Being Named after Christopher Robin

  As I have been writing about fathers and sons in the past few posts, I shift today from my position of father to that of son and to the literary origins of my name.   My father named me after Christopher Robin and recently told me that he envisioned having the kind of relationship with […]

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Michael Jackson and Peter Pan

  “I am Peter Pan,” Michael Jackson reportedly once said, and of course he chose to name his ranch Neverland. In this second of my two posts marking Jackson’s death, I thought I would reflect upon why J. M. Barrie’s fictional creation meant so much to him. Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up […]

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The Magic World of Children’s Lit

William Kristof, the much traveled Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times, wrote recently about the disturbing way that children’s IQ scores often drop over summer vacation. The cause is lack of intellectual stimulation. The problem is more severe with poor than it is with middle class kids. As an antidote, Kristof offered […]

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