Happy spring Monday dear readers! I’m hardening off my tomato and pepper seedlings as I work on a plan to combat invasive Japanese beetles before they can shred my Bing Holla! cheery tree, which is now in flower. The days have grown longer, and my crop of dandelions thrives in what is generously called my “lawn.” A fat bee is humming from yellow to yellow on my lawn. The natural world calls as it wakens from winter slumber. It’s time to head back to the 100 Acre Wood.

What was your first exposure to Poohdom? How did Poohicity appear in your life? What was the earliest thump, thump, thump sound of Winnie-the-Pooh tumbling into your life?

For me, there were some Disney Pooh books lying around, and a little later, the Disney animated show appeared. What I first remember, though, was a reading of Winnie-the-Pooh on CBC radio when I was very little, sitting in the back of our Datsun on a weekend drive. The audio reading brought Mr. Shepherd’s drawings in Mr. Milne’s slim volumes to life for me. The pen-and-ink sketches filled with colour, as it were–an experience that came back to me when a late 90s audio adaptation appeared (though you can hear in the podcast below, I might have confused some of the actors).

Once again, I’ve had the privilege of joining Derek Holser on The Plunge Podcast. After meeting Derek at a George MacDonald conference at Yale, I joined him for his Tolkien’s Greatest Characters series, talking about Samwise Gamgee (for obvious reasons). Prompted by another guest in the “Animals in Literature” series, Derek invited me to talk about Winnie-the-Pooh. We chat about the characters–classic Pooh, fretful Piglet, lumpy Eeyore, and Rabbit, who can spell Tuesday–but I was particularly interested in the 100 Acre Wood as a fictional world.

The pod includes lots of nonsense, of course, and a good amount of fun. Some of this blue-sky chatter about rooted things, however, is heartwarming. I hope it echoes the tug of homely nostalgia that the original series of stories evoked in its readers.

And, of course, I talk about the Canadian connection! And you can see my punk son at 8 months sitting at the feet of Winnie’s statue–one of Canada’s roadside wonderlands. Direct link is here, and you can click YouTube or Spotify below the description. I hope you enjoy!

The Hundred Acre Wood: (Stuffed) Animals in Literature with Brenton Dickieson

Welcome to Episode Twelve in our Animals in Literature series. Today’s conversation features a fun, nostalgic, endearing discussion of Christopher Robin and his friends in The Hundred Acre Wood, created by A.A. Milne. Today’s guest is returning Plunge favorite and great friend, Brenton Dickieson. Brenton is a father, husband, friend, university lecturer, and freelance writer from Prince Edward Island, Canada.

As the author of more than 1,100 articles, blog posts, and reviews, Brenton has worked as a freelance author, columnist, and policy writer for Canadian magazines and the government of Prince Edward Island. As a theologian of literature, Brenton writes the popular website, A Pilgrim in Narnia, which explores the intersections of faith, fantasy, and fiction. With more than 1.1 million website hits and a yearly readership now exceeding 200,000, more than 8,000 social media followers, and significant networks within the scholarly and readerly worlds of C.S. Lewis and the Inklings, Brenton has a powerful platform for considering the literary, spiritual, and theological interest of some of our most famous world-builders, including C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, L.M. Montgomery, and others.