An Event for Pooh Purists

Coming up later this week, there's an event for all of us who knew and loved Winnie-the-Pooh before the character became the star of a Disney animated film. 

On Thursday, November 19, at 7 p.m., at Spotty Dog Books & Ale, author and landscape designer Kathryn Aalto will be talking about Ashdown Forest in Oxfordshire, the real woods where ninety years ago A. A. Milne watched his son play with his stuffed animals and was inspired to write stories about Pooh and Piglet and Tigger and Roo and Eeyore and, of course, Christopher Robin, who lived and had adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood.

On Thursday, Aalto, who is the author of The Natural World of Winne-the-Pooh: A Walk Through the Forest that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood, will be sharing her photos of Ashdown Forest along with her "map"of Pooh's world. The picture below shows the bridge where Pooh and Christopher Robin created the game of Poohsticks. 

Last month, Aalto was interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered, in a feature entitled "'Natural World': In Which We Make an Expotition to the Hundred Acre Wood." To prepare yourself for Thursday's event--Aalton's only appearance in the Hudson Valley--you can listen to that interview here. 

Aalto will be signing copies of her book on Thursday evening, and a portion of the book sales will benefit the Campaign for the New Hudson Area Library.
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