2. Poems from When We Were Very Young

Poems from When We Were Very Young. A.A. Milne. Illustrated by Rosemary Wells. 2021. [October 26] 80 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: John had
Great Big
Waterproof
Boots on;

Premise/plot: This new book is not a reprint of the whole collection of poems originally published as When We Were Very Young. The original collection first published in 1924, had over forty poems. (If and only if I counted correctly 43???) This new picture book newly illustrated by Rosemary Wells (THE Rosemary Wells!!!) has a fraction of the poems. It has twelve poems.

Happiness
Rice Pudding
Disobedience
Lines and Squares
Independence
Halfway Down
The Three Foxes
The King's Breakfast
Puppy and I
Buckingham Palace
Jonathan Jo
The Third Chair (Nursery Chairs)

My thoughts: Rosemary Wells. If you love, love, love Rosemary Wells, then this book is probably worth your time. (Especially if you can preview it at the library first). The poems are definitely accessible. The book even includes vocabulary helps to help bridge the gap between the generations. This book moves quickly.

This one doesn't have *all* the poems I loved from the original book. It's not that the original book was my favorite and best book ever--it wasn't. Between Milne's two poetry books, I found a dozen poems (perhaps a few more) to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. Poems that really became a part of my childhood. The rest, well, the rest just were...

All things being said, the ORIGINAL book and the ORIGINAL illustrations are magical for me for nostalgic reasons. But I don't have a grudge against this new book. I do like Rosemary Wells. I do think many of the poems chosen were well chosen.

© 2022 Becky Laney of Young Readers