Next month we will all celebrate the 90th Anniversary of Winnie-the-Pooh’s first book. There will be a new book which will introduce another character – a penguin.
The new character will be called Penguin. He is Pooh’s long forgotten friend who will reunite with him.
Penguin follows the inspiration of the book’s other characters. There is a picture of A.A. Milne, the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh playing with his son Christopher Robin along with a couple of stuffed animals.
One of the stuffed animals is the original Pooh teddy bear and the other one is the Penguin. He will make a first appearance in short story In Which Penguin Arrives in the Forest. The author is Brian Sibley.
New Pooh tales, old friends
This is one of four tales which will make up the new book The Best Bear in All the World which will debut this October. “The thought of Pooh encountering a penguin seemed no more outlandish than his meeting a kangaroo and a tiger in a Sussex wood. So I started thinking about what might have happened if, on a rather snowy day, Penguin had found his way to Pooh Corner”, Sibley said.
The penguin toy is also thought to have been originally bought from the Harrods department store. Just like other characters like Pooh, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger.
“In the early years of the 20th century, toy penguins soared in popularity as the exploits of Antarctic explorers such as Shackleton and Scott fascinated the public. We believe that the toy pictured could be Squeak, which originated in our 1922 catalogue and came from Pip, Squeak, and Wilfred, a popular cartoon-strip”, said Harrods archivist Sebastian Wormell to the Independent.
Sibley said there had been no official record of why the penguin had been left out. He speculated it could have been to avoid similarities with Pip, Squeak and Wilfred.
We won’t spoil details of the story for you, but it’s going to be quite interesting. Also, you just know there is a Penguin stuffed animal coming in due time. And we can’t wait for it.
