Yesterday I wrote that Ramona was the first chapter book I ever read. And maybe it was, if you define chapter books for kids as those that were written after the genre was established in the 60s. But as I thought about it, Winnie the Pooh was definitely the first chapter book I ever read – and certainly the first chapter book I ever had read aloud to me.

An astonishing power accrues to those books that you fell asleep listening to as a kid. The characters, the cadence of the language, the incidents and plot twists… They become part of the fabric of your life, woven intimately into your character and world view. 

There were times when I fell asleep while my mom was reading Pooh, only to wake up as she was about to close the book and beg her to keep reading. I was listening on some deep dream-like level and could feel the chapter coming to a close. Then there were times when I was so wide awake and a part of the story, that I stayed awake long into the night afterward. I played with my teddy bear, conducting imaginary conversations with Pooh and Piglet.

That Winnie The Pooh was a chapter book there can be no doubt, because every night I would check how many pages there were in the chapters we were about to read before my mom or dad came in to read to me and my brother. That way, I knew that if it was a short chapter, I needed to negotiate for reading more than one chapter. And if it was a long chapter, then I had to negotiate hard so that they would read the entire thing.

I still have those original Winnie the Pooh books, along with a volume of A. A. Milne poetry called, Now We Are Six. They occupy a prominant spot in the bookshelf by my bedside. If I should open one and inhale their pages deeply, I am six years old in a pair of brand new pajamas once more. And there I sit cross-legged in bed, hanging on my mother’s every word as she reads to me. As she turns the page, I see that this page has a picture on it, and I lean in closer. The pictures in those chapter books were a huge big deal to my fledgling imagination.

In fact, for the longest time, the DaVinchy Chapter Series Books had a combination of line art and full-color art, in homage to the wonderful artwork of E.H. Shepherd. But Fran Panza, my partner and illustrator had the sense and the vision to create this world of DaVinchy in full living color. We are living in a different age and time. And the minds of kids are full of color imagry – they eat, sleep, and breathe color on their computers.

So color chapter books for kids is what we bring you. But now you know where it all began. The house at Pooh Corner.