Winnie-the-Pooh Celebration Week: Day 4 – The Strange Case of Lottie the Otter a.k.a. The Bane of My Existence

You may not have heard it, but this coming Saturday, January 24th is Winnie-the-Pooh Day. And not just any Winnie-the-Pooh Day either! All over the world people are celebrating the silly old bear’s 100th anniversary since the publication of his first books. This week, we celebrate him in different ways.

I’m going to tell you a personal Winnie-the-Pooh story today. This is a fun one. I haven’t thought about it for a while, but going through my files on Pooh and my time alongside him, I realized that I never accounted for one of the more peculiar incidents in the life and times of the stuffed Pooh animals. A time, indeed, when their sanctuary was invaded by an interloper… wearing pearls.

In 2009, this was the invite that went out:

PENGUIN YOUNG READERS GROUP WILL UNVEIL AND PRESENT A PERMANENT MURAL FOR THE ORIGINAL WINNIE-THE-POOH STUFFED ANIMALS THAT LIVE IN THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
CHILDREN’S CENTER AT 42 STREET

Join Winnie-The-Pooh and Friends as They Reveal Several Surprises and Begin a New Chapter in the Classic Winnie-The-Pooh Legacy

Jim Dale, Grammy Award-Winning Reader, to Give First Official Reading from the Newly Published RETURN TO THE HUNDRED ACRE WOOD. On October 5, in conjunction with the publication of Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, the first authorized sequel to the last Winnie-the-Pooh novel in more than 80 years, Penguin Young Readers Group will unveil and present a permanent mural for the original Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed animals that inspired the books — adding another chapter to its long history with Winnie-the-Pooh and the Library. Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, and Tigger have lived at The New York Public Library since 1987 and currently find their home in the Children’s Center at 42nd Street. Jim Dale, Grammy Award-winning reader who voiced all of the characters in Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, will give the first official read from the new book to school children before the unveiling.  WHO:            

• Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library
• Don Weisberg, President, Penguin Young Readers Group
• Jim Dale, award-winning voice for countless audio books
• Children from New York City’s schools
• …And a SURPRISE SPECIAL GUEST!

 WHEN:          

Monday, October 5
Press Check-In: 10:00 AM 
Welcome: 10:30 AM
Jim Dale Reading: 10:45 AM
Surprise Unveiling / Photo Opportunities: 10:55 AM
                                            
WHERE:        
Children’s Center at 42nd Street
The New York Public Library Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
(Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street)
 
ALL PRESS MUST RSVP IN ORDER TO BE CREDENTIALED

It was all very interesting and I wrote up the entire event here, complete with ample photographs. And if you’re wondering who the surprise special guest was, I misremembered it as Mary-Louise Parker, but that was actually a different event a month later. No, as it happens the special guest was someone a bit shorter and a bit furrier. Meet… Lottie:

a.k.a. My nemesis.

I’m going to endeavor to explain.

So in 2009, I was a children’s librarian working in the Central Children’s Room on 42nd Street. And, as I may have mentioned before, I worked alongside the original Winnie-the-Pooh dolls. We were originally in the Donnell Library on 53rd Street, but then NYPL sold the Donnell and moved the whole Central Children’s Room to the main location on 42nd and 5th. Which was unspeakably cool. We were now just down the hall from the original children’s room where Anne Carroll Moore herself used to traipse about.

In the room was an odd little room within a room. It was there that we placed the Winnie-the-Pooh toys, after the conservators got their hands on them and patched them up a bit (trust me when I say that Eeyore and Piglet sorely needed it). The room was nice but the walls were a bit bland. It’s hard to find images from that time, but it basically looked something like this.

See? Kind of boring.

That’s when someone at Penguin had a brilliant plan. I have to give them full credit. As press release events go, it was inspired. What if, in conjunction with this book they were releasing (called Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, now long since forgotten) Penguin were to paint the walls of that little room to look like the maps and other original illustrations by E. H. Shepard? AND what if they threw a big party to reveal the painted room alongside this new book AND they invited Jim Dale to do a reading?

It was absolutely the smartest thing in the world. Penguin was happy because it was a great way to highlight this book and NYPL was happy because they were getting more attention for the original Winnie-the-Pooh toys AND a free painted room! Miraculously, it all worked too. The room was revealed. Jim did his reading. Everyone was happy.

Almost.

You will remember the “special guest” that was touted. Well, in this new Winnie-the-Pooh book (“for the first time approved by the Trustees of the Pooh Properties”) author David Benedictus added an all new character. Her name was Lottie the Otter, and Jim Dale read her as if she were Lady Bracknall in The Importance of Being Earnest. On the page she was quite cute, thanks to the art of Mark Burgess:

And had she stayed on the page, I wouldn’t have had any problems with her. The trouble was that she didn’t remain two-dimensional. That photo I just showed you earlier? That was the unveiling of a stuffed animal version of Lottie by Don Weisberg, President of Penguin Young Readers Group.

That’s right. They gave her a cute little display case of her very own alongside an open copy of the new book. As you can see, she was outside of the room where the original toys were housed. And that was honestly just fine! They had their space. She had her own….

… until they put her in the case with Winnie.

*sigh*

Look. I’m no purist, all right? I understand how the world works. Some people were incensed that Lottie the character even existed at all. Like the new book was trying to improve upon Milne. I never felt that way. I liked that Burgess thought he could add a new playful element to the stories. That was fine. But our Library Director was hugely amused by Lottie. He just got a real kick out of that otter. So on his order, not long after this party, she ended up in the SAME CASE as all the original toys.

Where’s your photographic proof of this, Betsy? you may be asking. All I can say is, thank god for Roadside America. While I was foaming slightly at the mouth every time I even looked in the room, they took this shot:

And they had this to say:

“But who is that new, pearl-wearing, fresh-from-the-factory addition next to Kanga? Why, its Lottie the Otter, created long after Milne was dead, for the 2009 “authorized sequel” Return to Hundred Acre Wood.

In other words…the coveted position of sidekick is a donated product of the Disney/Penguin Books marketing machine.”

Now imagine you are an employee of the library and you have to answer the question, “Who is THAT?” over and over, day after day. My favorite response to her was a child who took one look at the case and asked, “Is that the groundhog from the movie?” Yes, kid. And that groundhog loved him some pearls.

At one point Pooh and friends went on display as part of an exhibit in another part of the library building. I missed them but was relieved to see that Lottie was not part of that exhibit as well. I thought that I’d finally seen the last of her! Hooray!

When they returned to our room we were ecstatic. And then, I kid you not, THEY PUT THE DING-DANG OTTER BACK INTO THE CASE!!!

I used to joke with my colleagues that one of these days I was going to break into the case with a hammer, grab that otter, and then run for the library’s exits, holding her like the furry little football she was.

All this madness ended, I think, when the toys went on display as part of Leonard Marcus’s The ABC of It exhibit. When they came back over 2 years later, Lottie was finally gone for good (possibly because the Library Director who had loved her so dearly went off to work for the Library of Congress). So where is Lottie today? Well, NYPL has ended up with a lot of odd promotional materials over the years. I distinctly remembering have to bypass a gigantic Eragon egg, that was supposed to hum when you plugged it in, that sat gathering dust in our stacks. Lottie, I have no doubt, has been carefully packaged, labeled, and put away in a box somewhere in either the Schwarzman or BookOps in Queens. She may never surface again, honestly. Her story, even a mere 17 years later, is well and truly forgotten.

Even so, I like to think that someday, someone is going to find that pearl-wearing little interloper and wonder what is to be done with her. Maybe they’ll take her home and give her to an actual child. It’s not the NYPL way to give away their archives, but maybe in her case they’ll make a furry little exception.

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