Now We Are Six

Now We Are Six. A.A. Milne. 1927. 102 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: When you are reciting poetry, which is a thing we never do, you find sometimes, just as you are beginning, that Uncle John is still telling Aunt Rose that if he can't find his spectacles he won't be able to hear properly, and does she know where they are; and by the time everybody has stopped looking for them, you are at the last verse, and in another minute they will be saying, "Thank you, thank you," without really knowing what it was all about.

Premise/plot: This is A.A. Milne's second volume of poetry written for children. His first was When We Were Very Young.

My thoughts: While I don't absolutely love, love, love Milne's two poetry collections as much as I love his two Pooh novels, I do appreciate them. My favorite poems from Now We Are Six include:

• Busy
• Binker
• Us Two
• The Engineer
• The End

From Busy

I think I am a Muffin Man. I haven't got a bell.
I haven't got the muffin things that muffin people sell.
Perhaps I am a Postman. No, I think I am a Tram.
I'm feeling rather funny and I don't know what I am--
BUT
Round about
And round about
And round about I go--
All around the table,
The table in the nursery--
Round about
And round about
And round about I go;
I think I am a Traveller escaping from a Bear;
I think I am an Elephant,
Behind another Elephant
Behind another Elephant who isn't really there...

 From Binker

Binker--what I call him--is a secret of my own,
And Binker is the reason why I never feel alone.
Playing in the nursery, sitting on the stair,
Whatever I am busy at, Binker will be there.
Oh, Daddy is clever, he's a clever sort of man,
And Mummy is the best since the world began,
And Nanny is Nanny, and I call her Nan--
But they can't
See
Binker.

From Us Two

Wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
Whatever I do, he wants to do,
"Where are you going today?" says Pooh:
"Well, that's very odd, 'cos I was too.
Let's go together," says Pooh, says he.
"Let's go together," says Pooh.

Original audience born circa 1920 to 1924.

© 2019 Becky Laney of Young Readers