"'Let's frighten the dragons,' I said to Pooh. / 'That's right,' said Pooh to Me. / 'I'm not afraid,' I said to Pooh, / And I held his paw and I shouted, 'Shoo! / Silly old dragons!'--and off they flew," says Christopher Robin in A.A. Milne's well-loved poem "Us Two." Milne (1882-1956) didn't start writing for children until 1920, when his son, the real Christopher Robin, was a year old. That's about when his wife Daphne envisioned her son's stuffed Harrods bear, tiger, pig, kangaroo, and donkey as characters in a children's book. And the rest is history! By 1924, Milne had published When We Were Very Young, a whimsical collection of verses illustrated in gentle watercolors by Ernest H. Shepard; Now We Are Six, a second collection, followed in 1927. This hefty, full-color volume brings together all of Milne's verses, unabridged. If you fondly remember "James James / Morrison Morrison / Weatherby George Dupree / Took great / Care of his Mother, / Though he was only three," from "Disobedience," or "Ernest was an elephant, a great big fellow, / Leonard was a lion with a six-foot tail, / George was a goat, and his beard was yellow, / And James was a very small snail," from "The Four Friends," this fabulous collection will send you into a dreamy reverie. And for those young readers to whom Pooh is new, these innocent, gently humorous, 70-year-old poems--along with The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh--will still resonate deeply. (All ages) --Karin Snelson