A Snarky Retelling of Winnie-the-Pooh, and Our Favorite Poem

A Bear of (Supposedly) Very Little Brain

Once upon a time there lived a bear. Some of the bear’s friends made a point of constantly telling him that he had no brain. This, of course, could simply not be true because somehow he managed, time and time again, to think and feel and wonder about his life in the woods.

One day this bear (who clearly had to think in order to come up with this plan) wanted to get some honey from a beehive swinging from the top of a tree. First he tried to climb the tree, which resulted in much physical discomfort. Nobody likes to land in a gorse bush. Next he went to visit his dear friend, a child living in a tree in the woods who happened to have a balloon that he could fill with helium from his own lungs. What an incredible ability. The bear explained to his friend that the balloon would make him look like a cloud, as to fool the bees and steal their honey. He didn’t even consider that they might be the wrong sorts of bees.

The bear rolled in a mud puddle until he was covered with glop from head to toe. He grabbed onto the balloon and floated up into the air, miraculously toward the beehive instead of away from the beehive. Thank goodness the wind blew him in the right direction. (As you may know, the wind in this particular forest didn’t always behave well.) The bees began to suspect something. The bear’s friend put up his umbrella at the bear’s request to further the cloud masquerade. The bees didn’t buy the sham for a moment. One bee stung the poor bear right on the nose.

The story ends well for our friends, however. We end with the bear stuck in a different tree, eating honey, happy and content.

(adapted from A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh)

Noise, By Pooh

Oh, the butterflies are flying,
Now the winter days are dying,
And the primroses are trying
To be seen.

And the turtle-doves are cooing,
And the woods are up and doing,
For the violets are blue-ing
In the green.

Oh, the honey bees are gumming
On their little wings, and humming
That the summer, which is coming,
Will be fun.

And the cows are almost cooing,
And the turtle-doves are mooing,
Which is why a Pooh is poohing
In the sun.

For the spring is really springing;
You can see a skylark singing,
And the blue-bells, which are ringing,
Can be heard.

And the cuckoo isn’t cooing,
But he’s cucking and he’s ooing,
And a Pooh is simply poohing
Like a bird.

-A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner