Guest blog: Room in her heart for a "Pooh" sequel
A new book hits the stands today, more than 80 years after A.A. Milne鈥檚 final classic.聽 鈥溾�� by David Benedictus is the first sequel authorized by Milne鈥檚 estate, said , and will introduce a 鈥渟aucy, pearl-wearing鈥� new character called Lottie the Otter.
I would expect this to rile my book-purist heart, but 鈥渟equels鈥� written by new authors don鈥檛 push my curmudgeon buttons. At worst, they are only irrelevant. Alexandra Ripley鈥檚 鈥淪carlett,鈥� may have been dreadful, for instance, but that didn鈥檛 change how I felt about Margaret Mitchell鈥檚 鈥�Gone With The Wind鈥�.
In Pooh鈥檚 case, perhaps the news doesn鈥檛 sting because the bear and his friends were long ago Disneyfied and commercialized. Or it might be the example set by comic book publishers, where new writers and artists reinterpret characters and start new storylines, long after the creators have moved on or died.
Besides, the evidence shows that human nature craves sequels as badly as candy, even with books that 鈥� like the original Pooh 鈥� have the loveliest, most final endings.聽 Just look at how readers write endless stories set in the worlds of the books they love, in the form of unauthorized 鈥渇an fiction.鈥� On one main site, fan-fiction.net, the Twilight books alone feature more than 100,000 registered fan-written stories. Harry Potter has more than 400,000; even Gossip Girl topped 5,000.
Winnie the Pooh? His fan fiction category only boasts 14 entries, not all of them relevant or even readable. It doesn鈥檛 seem so bad to add one lovingly researched, long-considered work to the authorized canon 鈥� otter and all.
(To see a video聽 of Jim Dale reading "Return to the Hundred Acre Wood" at the Children's Center in New York, click .)
Rebekah Denn writes at .
