Winnie-the-Pooh makes friends with a penguin to mark anniversary

Ninety years after AA Milne’s first book about Christopher Robin’s bear, the much loved children’s character is returning with a new companion

The Hundred Acre Wood is already home to a diverse animal population, from a kangaroo to the world’s most famous bear. Now a penguin is due to join the cast dreamed up by AA Milne in 1926, to mark the 90th anniversary of Winnie-the-Pooh.

Author Brian Sibley was inspired to create the character of Penguin by a little-known photograph of Milne with his son Christopher Robin Milne, in which Christopher is playing with a penguin toy alongside a teddy bear. The latter, which was renamed Winnie-the-Pooh after London Zoo’s Canadian black bear Winnie, was bought by Christopher’s mother Daphne Milne from the Harrods toy department, and was the inspiration for Milne’s best-loved stories set in the Hundred Acre Wood.

Related: The real Winnie-the-Pooh and friends back on show after makeover

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