Tag Archives: A. A. Milne

Portrait of the Lesbian as a Young Artist

By Robin Bates | Published: December 4, 2014

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

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alison Bechdel, Autobiography, Catcher in the Rye, Colette, Fun House, homosexuality, Importance of Being Earnest, J. D. Salinger, James and the Giant Peach, James Joyce, lesbianism, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Remembrance of Things Past, Roald Dahl, Ulysses, Winnie the Pooh | Comments closed

Books about People Reading Books

By Robin Bates | Published: July 25, 2014

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

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, David Copperfield, E. Nesbit, Jane Austen, Jane Eyre, Kenneth Grahame, metafiction, Northanger Abbey, Treasure Seekers, wind in the willows, Winnie the Pooh, Would Be Goods | Comments closed

The Rising Floodwaters of Sadness

By Robin Bates | Published: August 20, 2013

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.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Castaway", death and dying, William Cowper, Winnie the Pooh | Comments closed

March Madness, A Return to Innocence

By Robin Bates | Published: March 19, 2011

Sports Saturday March Madness begins this weekend. Actually, to be exact, it begins for the big schools. Division III colleges are in the final week of their tournament. I know because my college was one step away from making the final four. For the first time ever, St. Mary’s College of Maryland sent a team […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "King John's Christmas", "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College", Basketball, Childhood, Sports, Thomas Gray | Comments closed

On Being Named after Christopher Robin

By Robin Bates | Published: July 24, 2009

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 […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged fathers and sons, House at Pooh Corner, Winnie the Pooh | Comments closed

Prancing Poetry and a Child’s Imagination

By Robin Bates | Published: July 16, 2009

Last week I gave a list of my favorite children’s books when I was young. My father, who is a poet along with being a French professor, read us poetry as well as fiction (each night, one story or chapter and one poem for each of my three brothers and me), so I thought I’d […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alfred E. Noyes, Alice in Wonderland, Cat in the Hat, Cautionary Tales for Children, children's poetry, Dr. Seuss, Edward Lear, Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, Goden Treasury of Poetry, Gunga Din, Highwayman, Hilaire Belloc, James Whitcomb Riley, Lewis Carroll, Little Orphant Annie, Louis Untemeyer, Mother Goose, Nonsense Verse, Now that I'm Six, Oliver Goldsmith, Rudyard Kipling, Song of Sherwood, The Listeners Tales for Children, The Raggedy Man, Walter De La Mare, When We Were Very Young | Comments closed

Michael Jackson and Peter Pan

By Robin Bates | Published: July 9, 2009

“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 […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alice in Wonderland, Annabelle Lee, Edgar Allen Poe, Francis Hodgson Burnett, innocence, J. M. Barrie, Lewis Carroll, Michael Jackson, Peter Pan, Secret Garden, Vladimir Nabokov, Winnie the Pooh | Comments closed

The Magic World of Children’s Lit

By Robin Bates | Published: July 7, 2009

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 […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alexander Dumas, Alice in Wonderland, Around the World in 80 Days, Arthur Conan Doyle, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, C.S. Lewis, Cecil Day-Lewis, children's books, E. Nesbitt, Francis Hodgson Burnett, Freddy the Pig, George MacDonald, Hardy Boys, Homer, Iliad, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne, Jungle Books, Just So Stories, Knights of King Midas, Lewis Carroll, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Lost World, Mistress Masham's Repose, Narnia Chronicles, Otterbury Incident, Paul Berna, Rudyard Kipling, Scarlet Pimpernel, summer reading, T.H. White, The Lord of the Rings, The Princess and Curdie, The Secret Garden, Three Musketeers, Treasure Seekers, William Kristof, Winnie the Pooh, Would Be Goods | Comments closed