Children Are Children Are Children

There's a nice craft book by that title, should you be the sort of person who is interested in doing crafts with (grade-school-age) children.  The gist of the title is simply that, whatever the time or place, there are certain commonalities in the way children think.

That is why classic children's books can remain classic: because they really do dig in to the way children think about the world.  The Winnie the Pooh books are an outstanding example (far more than the Disney adaptations, although the older ones of those are fairly innocent and harmless).

For instance ...

There is a pine cone sitting on my desk right now.  It's a little lopsided, and doesn't quite have that autumnal je-ne-sais-quoi  that, say, a William Sonoma centerpiece would have, because small children have picked off some of the knobs from the bottom--very methodically--although more from one side than the other, so that it now leans for support rather than standing properly.  That it should have been the recipient of experimentation by small hands is only right and just, however: it is booty from a walk, and the rightful possession of the little people of the house.  In this case, I borrowed it for the ambiance, not (as so often happens) the other way round.

The children call it "the fir cone."

This, despite my introduction of it as a "pine cone."  (Reader, I promise, it is a pine cone from a pine tree.  I used to know my botany well.)

I was initially disturbed by this until I realized that their avatar for such articles is the collection of fir cones that Winnie the Pooh throws over the bridge, thus inventing the game of Pooh Sticks.  Also, while Pooh sings a song about "a mystery / About a little fir tree," the only evergreens one meets in the books are the Six Pine Trees.

So one can play Pooh sticks with a fir cone from a pine tree in small person land.  That, at least, is the Tao of Pooh, and I for one am not prepared to dispute it on such a fine afternoon as this.