SOURCE: "A. A. Milne's 'When We Were Very Young' and 'Now We Are Six': A Small World of Everyday Pleasures," in Touchstones: Reflections on the Best in Children's Literature, Vol. 2, Children's Literature Association, 1987, pp. 173-82.

In the following essay, Wilson offers a close examination of the poems, and of the underlying worldview, in Milne's two books of poetry for children.

Like Robert Louis Stevenson, A. A. Milne began his first book for children as a diversion during a dismally wet summer holiday. He had already written "Vespers," and Rose Fyleman had encouraged him to write a book of verses after he sent her ;The Dormouse and the Doctor." Working in a summerhouse in Wales, Milne began what was to become a perennial best-seller of children's literature as he reflected upon childhood—his own, and his son's: " . . . there on the other side of the lawn was a child with...