And I have to include the “Pooh books,” which my father read to me — more than once. Then I read them myself many times when I was young and, years later, read them to my own children. Favorite moments from those two books often come to mind when I’m talking with someone else who knows the stories. Pooh often contains words of wisdom for grownups. There is, for instance, a passage which I think of as a reminder that research is not finished until it is published, in which Pooh observes that “Sometimes a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

For an emotional experience, try reading the last chapter of the second book to a six-year-old son. That’s the chapter in which we learn that Christopher Robin is going away. They all say “Good-Bye,” and then Christopher Robin and Pooh walk slowly away, “Thinking of This and That,” until they come to an enchanted place on the very top of the Forest called Galleons Lap, where they talk about many serious matters. Finally Christopher Robin says, “Pooh, promise you won’t forget about me, ever. Not even when I’m a hundred.” And then Christopher Robin and Pooh go off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing. Three times, with my three sons, I have had to read that chapter to a six-year-old son and I still find it hard to remember those occasions without choking up.

As a personal note on Galleons Lap, in my family we have our own Galleons Lap, an enchanted place at the top of the forest, in Pelham woodlands that were in my family for decades, recently sold to the town of Amherst for watershed protection and officially called “Romer Woods.” We were sorry to let the land go but pleased to know its present purpose and its protection — and its continuing availability to the public for passive recreation such as walking.