“Winnie the Pooh 80th Anniversary Edition” (A.A. Milne)
Really?
The troubled book industry, in need of titles that will pull readers into the stores, will get a much-needed jolt this fall when the first authorized sequel to A.A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh” and “The House at Pooh Corner” is published Oct. 5 under the title “Return to the Hundred Acre Wood.”
Mr. Milne died in 1956. The author of the new book is David Benedictus, who produced two successful audiobooks based on Mr. Milne’s famous children’s titles. Mr. Benedictus, who lives in London, said that after an earlier offer to write a sequel was rebuffed, he heard back from the Milne estate about 2½ years ago. “People will be highly suspicious, but I hope they’ll think I didn’t do a bad job,” said Mr. Benedictus.
The work, illustrated by Mark Burgess, is being published in the U.S. by Dutton Children’s Books, an imprint of Pearson PLC’s Penguin Young Readers Group (USA). Don Weisberg, president of Penguin Young Readers Group, said he expects the title to be a “huge seller for a long, long time.” The initial print run will be in excess of 100,000.
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I have a wait-and-see attitude, the original books were oft read in my childhood. Seems hard to imagine a new book would be as charming, but I don’t have a child of my own to test it upon.