Tigger's New Toy Saves the Day in Winnie the Pooh and the Toy Airplane

The Hundred-Acre Wood is a very low-tech kind of place. To borrow from Bilbo Baggins, “life in the [Wood] goes on, very much as it has this past Age... full of its own comings and goings, with change coming slowly, if it comes at all.” So I was a bit surprised when I stumbled upon Winnie the Pooh and the Toy Airplane, a Golden book written by Joan Phillips and illustrated by Bill Langley and Russell Schroeder.

This book features just four characters: Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Roo. Considering Tigger’s general state of hyperness, it makes sense that he is the one with a fancy new toy to show off. It’s a rather handsome toy, and apparently it’s functional, though you sure wouldn’t know it to look at it. I could see how you might be able to toss it and possibly watch it soar for a while after being caught in a breeze, but there’s more to it than that. The thing actually flies. And when an especially small someone is in the pilot’s seat, steering is evidently a cinch.

So we have an airplane, which in and of itself seems rather out of place in such a low-tech landscape, and it’s apparently a very sophisticated piece of equipment. That makes for a rather odd premise. Meanwhile, Tigger and plane alike vanish from the story for a while, which seems a little strange. But this is what leads to Pooh, Piglet and Roo going pebble-hunting and Roo getting himself swept away by the creek, necessitating heroics after Tigger magically reappears to announce that the only way to save Roo is by flying over to him and picking him up, and the only one small enough to manage it is Piglet, who wants nothing to do with the plane. It would seem that the three who remain on the shore are not swimmers; that strikes me the more practical way to pull off a water rescue...

The writing style is extremely simple. A small circle in the corner identifies this as “A Golden Very Easy Reader,” and we’re definitely talking beginners here. Most of the sentences are quite short, and the same words come up multiple times throughout the book. Aside from the character names, we get five uses of the word “toy,” six uses of “look,” eight uses of “Oh, my” and thirteen uses of “fly” or “flying,” The repetition helps to make reading easier, though it may make the story a little dull for older readers.

Although it was published in 1990, the book has a rather flat look to it that makes it seem older. For the most part, there’s no shading to the characters, with only some shadows and color variation in the background, particularly on the grass. Still, the characters are faithful representations, and aside from the jarring blue plane, which could have used an extra detail or two - such as any indication of a steering mechanism - everything looks as it should for the Hundred-Acre Wood.

I still consider this easy reader, which I think I picked up at a yard sale, to be an oddity, and I certainly wouldn’t list it among my favorite Pooh books. But the camaraderie among the four pals is enjoyable, as is Piglet’s show of bravery, reluctant as it may be. While I probably wouldn’t specifically seek it out, if you come across it randomly as I did, Winnie the Pooh and the Toy Airplane is worth a look.