The House at Pooh Corner

This book follows the adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh, a bear of Very Little Brain, and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood, a forest presided over by a young boy named Christopher Robin. The episodic narrative introduces a new character, Tigger, and traces the gentle daily adventures of the animal companions before arriving at an emotional farewell as Christopher Robin prepares to leave childhood behind.

On a snowy day, Pooh sets out to visit his timid friend Piglet, only to find Piglet has come to Pooh's house instead. Together they trudge through the snow to visit Eeyore, the perpetually gloomy donkey. Along the way, Pooh remarks that Eeyore has no house and proposes building one from a heap of sticks Piglet spots near a pine wood, naming the spot Pooh Corner. Meanwhile, Eeyore reports to Christopher Robin that his stick house has vanished. When Christopher Robin discovers the sticks are gone, he and Eeyore hear Pooh and Piglet singing about the house they have just built. Pooh and Piglet realize with embarrassment that they dismantled Eeyore's house and reassembled it elsewhere. They lead everyone to the rebuilt structure, and Eeyore, unaware of the mistake, concludes the wind must have blown his house to a superior location, proudly praising his own craftsmanship.

One night, Pooh is woken by a strange noise and opens his door to meet Tigger, a bouncy, striped animal new to the Forest. Tigger claims that Tiggers like "everything," but the next morning he rejects Pooh's honey. At Piglet's house, he tries haycorns (acorns) and spits them out. At Eeyore's corner, he bites into a thistle and yelps from the prickles. Finally, at the house of Kanga, a motherly kangaroo, Tigger watches Kanga's young son Roo reluctantly take his Strengthening Medicine, a spoonful of Extract of Malt, and impulsively licks a taste from the spoon. He declares that Extract of Malt is what Tiggers like, and from then on he lives at Kanga's house.

Rabbit, the self-important organizer of the Forest, enlists the others to search for Small, one of Rabbit's many friends-and-relations whose real name is Very Small Beetle. Pooh sets off to find Piglet but stumbles into a gravel pit and lands on Piglet, who had also fallen in. Trapped together, they fear they have stumbled into a Heffalump Trap, a snare for the large, fearsome creatures Piglet dreads. Christopher Robin finds them and calls down into the pit. Piglet, lost in a fantasy of outwitting a Heffalump, responds in confusion. Then Piglet spots something crawling on Pooh's back: Small. Christopher Robin praises Piglet for the discovery. Two days later, Eeyore is still searching, having never been told Small was found.

Roo challenges Tigger to climb the tallest of the Six Pine Trees after Tigger boasts that Tiggers can climb better than anyone. With Roo on his back, Tigger ascends but grows nervous. A branch breaks, and they become stranded, unable to descend. Pooh and Piglet arrive below and initially mistake Tigger for a Jagular, an imagined wild beast. Christopher Robin and Eeyore join them, and Christopher Robin removes his tunic for everyone to hold as a makeshift net. Roo jumps safely, but Tigger clings to his branch before finally letting go and crashing into the group. Eeyore, buried at the bottom, dryly asks them to thank Tigger.

Rabbit discovers Christopher Robin's house empty, with a misspelled note on the door: "GON OUT BACKSON BISY BACKSON." He takes it to Owl, the Forest's self-proclaimed intellectual, who concludes that Christopher Robin has gone off with a mysterious creature called a "Backson." Rabbit consults Pooh and then Eeyore, who is proudly studying three sticks Christopher Robin taught him to arrange into the letter A. Eeyore explains that Christopher Robin spends his mornings learning. Rabbit dismisses Eeyore's letter as "not a very good one," devastating Eeyore, who angrily stomps on his sticks. The next morning, a properly spelled note reveals that Christopher Robin spends his mornings at school.

Pooh invents the game of Poohsticks after accidentally dropping a fir-cone off one side of the wooden bridge over the river and watching it float out the other side. During a game with Piglet, Rabbit, and Roo, a large grey shape drifts beneath the bridge: Eeyore, floating on his back. Pooh drops a stone to create waves that wash Eeyore to the bank. Pulled ashore, Eeyore reveals someone bounced him into the river. Tigger arrives and claims he merely coughed. Christopher Robin settles the dispute by suggesting they all play Poohsticks, and Eeyore wins more than anyone.

Rabbit proposes taking Tigger on a walk into an unfamiliar, misty part of the Forest and deliberately losing him there to teach him humility. When Tigger bounds ahead into the fog, Rabbit signals Pooh and Piglet to hide. Rabbit then confidently leads the others homeward, but every direction leads back to the same sand-pit. Lost and cold, Pooh suggests they follow his instinct rather than keep searching. They soon meet Christopher Robin, who has come looking for them with Tigger. Rabbit, left alone in the mist, is eventually found by Tigger. The Small and Sorry Rabbit cries out that he is glad to see Tigger, exactly the humbled reaction Rabbit had predicted Tigger would display, but reversed.

On a windy autumn day, Pooh and Piglet visit Owl's house. Inside, the tree in which Owl lives topples over, trapping them. The front door is blocked by a fallen branch, so Pooh proposes that Owl fly Piglet up to the letter-box, now in the ceiling, so Piglet can squeeze through the mail slot and fetch help. Terrified, Piglet manages it. Pooh later composes a seven-verse poem celebrating Piglet's bravery. When Rabbit sends a notice seeking a new house for Owl, Eeyore proudly leads everyone to the house he has found: Piglet's own home. Still warmed by Pooh's poem about his courage, Piglet performs what the narrator calls a Noble Thing, agreeing the house is perfect for Owl despite having been happy there himself. Pooh answers at once that Piglet will come live with him, and Piglet squeezes Pooh's paw, saying he would love to.

A feeling spreads through the Forest that Christopher Robin is going away. Eeyore reads aloud a poem he has written about the departure, and everyone signs it. The animals deliver it to Christopher Robin and drift away until only Pooh remains. Christopher Robin pockets the poem, calls it comforting, and walks with Pooh to Galleons Lap, an enchanted place atop the Forest, a circle of trees with smooth green grass. Christopher Robin tells Pooh about things he is learning and knights Pooh with a stick, declaring him "Sir Pooh de Bear, most faithful of all my Knights." He grows quiet, telling Pooh he is "not going to do Nothing any more" because "they don't let you." He asks Pooh to visit this enchanted place sometimes and makes Pooh promise never to forget him, even when Pooh is 99 and Christopher Robin is 100. The narrator closes by affirming that wherever they go and whatever happens, in the enchanted place on top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.