Little-known
children’s bestseller

Not many of today’s readers may have heard of When We Were Very Young by A. A. Milne but, in its time, it had a mesmerising effect on kids, writes Lt-Gen Baljit Singh (retd)

WHEN recently I learnt that E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web had sold 45 million copies since its first print in 1952, I was instinctively drawn to another children’s book in our collection.

When We Were Very Young was written by A. A. Milne and "decorated" (to use Milne’s word) by the artist Ernest H. Shepard.

Milne dedicated the book to his three-year-old son, Christopher Robin, though he chose to introduce himself always by his self-chosen name, Billy Moon! The book is something like a ghost-written autobiography made up of 90 episodes in verse on as many pages, from Christopher’s childhood. The combined effect of Milne’s poems and Shepard’s ink sketches create a truely mesmerising effect on the young and the old readers alike.

The book was first published on November 6, 1924, and so great was its appeal that in the next 54 days (December 31, 1924) it had run into the sixth edition. The first print run also included "100 signed copies on handmade art paper". This last aspect is rather intriguing considering that this appears to be the first and only creation of Milne.

What we possess is a copy from the "twentyfifth and cheap edition, 1934" which is a good indicator of the book’s enduring appeal over that ten-year period. I do not know how many print reruns it has had altogether since 1924. The young lady at the OUP outlet at Chandigarh tells me that the book’s latest edition was published in the USA in May 2006! And that it is also available on a CD, audio-visual DVD and so on.

Perhaps, the success of this book lay in Milne’s ability to penetrate into and understand a child’s innocence, fantasy-world and psyche to perfection. Take for instance, Christopher’s sight-seeing trip to the Buckingham Palace under the tutelage of Alice, his nurse:

Then there is the poem Puppy and I in which Billy Moon meets a man going to the village to get bread, then a horse who is out for collecting hay, next a woman going for grocery and a bit further on, rabbits who were looking for oats. Each one, in turn, invites Christopher for his company but he finds their errands not so exciting. At last, here is what a child’s heart prompts Billy Moon to grasp at once with both hands as it were:

The concluding poem, Vespers, is a masterly insight into a child’s sense of duty and his wandering thoughts:

In due course, Vespers found its way to the library of the Queen’s Dolls House.

It does not come as a surprise that 82 years since its publication, Milne’s book is even today credited with a "five-star" readership rating. And one of the customer reviews of August 2006 would surely make Milne happy (wherever he may be):

"One day I found one of the poems running around in my head for 40 years after I first began reading them to my boys when they were very young. As my older took that copy sometime back, I had to order a new for my 67-year-old myself just to get the lines absolutely correct. It was worth it. My only regret is that I have no grandchildren to read to."

I believe, there is no better prescription for de-stressing and re-invigorating the mind in middle and old age than random reading of children’s vintage literature.

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