12/04/2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BumblePuppy Press publishes The Inclusive Winnie-the-Pooh
The 100 Acre Wood No Longer for Boys Only
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, DECEMBER 4, 2025 — Ottawa's BumblePuppy Press has entered the world of classic children’s books – with a twist.
The Inclusive Winnie-the-Pooh, including the original illustrations by E.H. Shepard, updates A.A. Milne’s classic, Winnie-the-Pooh, for an era when male is not the default state of being.
When Geoffrey Dow started reading Milne’s stories to his then two-year old daughter Baobao, he was struck by two things. First, the stories were every bit as good as he remembered, and second, that all of the characters but one (Kanga – a mother) were gendered male.
So he decided to switch things up: Christopher Robin became Christina, and both Eeyore and Piglet made the transition from boy to girl.
“Why should a story about stuffed animals be a boys-only club?” Dow wondered, and then decided that, since the book had fallen into the public domain in both Canada and the United States, he would publish it as he had read it to his daughter, so that she would have a copy of the book as she had heard it.
The result is The Inclusive Winnie-the-Pooh, which keeps the wit, the adventure, and the pathos of Milne’s original, while making the stories tales that everyone might related to.
Geoffrey Dow is a long time-editor and writer. He studied under the late Judith Merril in the 1980s, has written for CBC Radio, the Globe and Mail, and Humanist Perspectives. He blogs occasionally at www.ed-rex.com and about his adventures in fatherhood at www.papazesser.ca and is the proprietor of the BumblePuppy Press.
For more information, visit www.bppress.ca. To request a review copy or to arrange an interview, please email [email protected].
