Deep in the New York City Library lurks a bit of Pooh Corner… the holy grail of iconic characters from our childhoods. The original Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals that inspired the iconic classic story find their home in the Children’s Storybook wing of the library.
Here’s the story via the NYC Public Library: “Long before Walt Disney turned Pooh and his pals into movie stars, Christopher Robin Milne, a very real little boy living in England, received a small stuffed bear on his first birthday. He named him Edward Bear (later renamed Winnie-the-Pooh). Following Edward came the rest of the stuffed animals, which Christopher loved and played with throughout his childhood.”
“One day, Christopher’s father, A. A. Milne, and an artist named Ernest H. Shepard, decided that these animals, and two other imaginary friends, Owl and Rabbit, would make fine characters in a bedtime story. From that day on, Pooh and his friends have had many fanciful adventures, from Piglet’s encounter with a Heffalump to Eeyore’s loss of his tail. These stories have been embraced by millions of children and adult readers for more than 70 years.”
If you’d like to visit Winnie-the-Pooh and his pals, stop on by the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (in The New York Public Library) where admission is free, and the imagination flows like honey.
– photos and story by Michael Cuffe for Warholian
To visit this exhibit, find out more here: http://www.nypl.org/pooh