Dustin Willis

Public Domain Pooh!

I suspect this book is entirely A.I. generated, and perhaps Amazon does also because it is currently unavailable for purchase on the site, just a week after I bought my copy there.

Pooh and his friends get upset by the intrusion into the Hundred Acre Wood of an aggressively posturing bee. No one gets stung, but they all plot to tame it or drive it away because they don't like it's look and attitude. Very xenophobic. The story sticks to the most cliched of Pooh story structures as he consults his friends in turn for advice and solves the problem in time for a celebratory party at the end.

But solving the problem brings a unique bit of strangeness. Chapter 7 is entitled "The Final Showdown" and has Pooh transforming the bee to an ambassador of peace after a battle of the wills. But then the next two chapters suddenly have Pooh confront and have two more final showdowns with the bee, as if they were a string of alternate endings rather than a continuing narrative. But the third time is the charm -- time to party!

The writing borders on gibberish with lots of key words repeated monotonously for unnecessary emphasis of the story's themes. With the right over-the-top delivery, this has the potential to be a so-bad-it's-good read-aloud, but really it's just bad. Very, very bad.

p.s., After posting this review, I checked the author's Goodreads page and see that he has over 500 books, the vast majority of which have been published in the last year. So, yeah, probably an A.I. cowboy.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... )… (meer)