The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh: A Walk Through the Forest that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood

By Kathryn Aalto. Timber Press: Portland, OR, 2015.

The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh explores the magical landscapes where Pooh, Christopher Robin, and their friends live and play. The Hundred Acre Wood—the setting for Winnie-the-Pooh’s adventures—was inspired by Ashdown Forest, a wildlife haven that spans more than 6,000 acres in southeast England. It functions as nature writing, well-informed biography, travelogue and a field guide to a literary landscape rolled into one. Discover how Milne’s childhood connection with nature and his role as a father influenced his famous stories, and how his close collaboration with illustrator E. H. Shepard brought those stories to life. The book also serves as a guide to the plants, animals, and places of the remarkable Ashdown Forest, and is enriched with E. H. Shepard’s original illustrations, hundreds of color photographs, and Milne’s own words.

Eeyore’s house of sticks

The book recently hit #7 on the New York Times Travel bestseller list. It was also featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” was a People Magazine Book of the Week and appeared in dozens of newspapers, radio and other sources, including The Washington Post.

Kathryn Aalto is a writer, designer, historian and lecturer. For the past twenty-five years, her focus has been on places where nature and culture intersect: teaching literature of nature and place, designing gardens, and writing about the natural world. She is the author of The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh: A Walk Through the Forest that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood (2015) and Nature and Human Intervention (2011).