Disney’s Marketing Wonder Doesn’t Capture True Pooh

Re: “Pooh’s Pot of Gold” by Mary McNamara, Dec. 21:

The clever folks at Disney’s consumer products division understand a lot about marketing merchandise. But they don’t know a whole lot about the real Winnie-the-Pooh. Call me a Pooh purist but I cringe when I see kids reading and watching untrue-to-character Disney-fied versions of the stories, which cannot possibly replace A.A. Milne’s wonderful words. And the flat, cartoon-like drawings do not come close to E.H. Shepard’s sweet illustrations.

Parents, give your kids a real treat: Keep the stuffed animals and sheets if you must, but bypass the Disney books and instead buy copies of Milne’s original classics, “The House at Pooh Corner” and “Winnie-the-Pooh.” You’re both in for a real reading treat. As actor Peter Dennis writes in the booklet accompanying his extraordinary recordings of Milne’s works, Milne intended the stories “for the child within us all.” Not for the Disney store in the mall.

KAREN LINDELL

Sierra Madre