How a Bear Became a Book: The Collaboration That Created Winnie-the-Pooh

Bay Pimentel and Pray highlight the importance of teamwork, pulling back the curtain on the creators who produced the Winnie-the-Pooh books. Omniscient narration unfolds in dialogue with Pooh himself (“Oh, bother”). The story begins with author A.A. Milne writing “some words about a bear” (“A bear?! Where?/ Oh. Me!”). Frank text describes how an editor played matchmaker between Milne and illustrator Ernest Shepard, and how the trio then innovated with page layout: “They bounced words up and down, right off the line.” A combination of pencil and watercolor, and screen and reverse transfer printing, wispily rendered artwork is successfully redolent of Pooh and friends, with snippets of typeset text from the original books generating a suitably literary collage effect across this winsome peek behind the scenes of a beloved bear’s birth. Human characters are portrayed with pale skin. Includes extensive back matter. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)