When Winnie-the-Pooh gets stuck in Rabbit’s doorway after eating too much for elevenses, he is anxious and gloomy at the thought of having to forgo food for a whole week to get out. He asks Christopher Robin to read him “a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness”.
A.A. Milne’s first children’s novel, Winnie-the-Pooh, does not exactly explain what a “Sustaining Book” is. But E.H. Shepard’s illustration provides some clue. Christopher Robin is shown reading an alphabet book with the word JAM for J visible on the page.
Jam is not Pooh’s favourite food, of course, but the word is more than apt. Pooh is in a jam, but being read to sustains him in his difficult situation by bringing him comfort. The book acts as “an aid in the crisis”, as former teacher Ethel Newell noted in a study of bibliotherapy for children in 1957.
