Free Winnie-the-Pooh books to fill phone box libraries

Free books for 150 red phone box libraries are being made available to celebrate 100 years of two British legends – Winnie-the-Pooh and the K2 red phone box.

The story’s original publisher, Farshore, said it would donate copies of AA Milne’s classics – whose setting was inspired by Ashdown Forest in East Sussex – alongside a new authorised sequel A Little Boy and His Bear.

Sally Phillips, actor and narrator of the newly reissued Winnie-the-Pooh audiobooks, launched the campaign earlier by reading to schoolchildren at a phone box library in Chartham, Kent.

“He has always been the number one bear in our house,” she told the BBC.

People across the UK have been invited to nominate their local red phone box libraries for the books to help the campaign’s organisers “uncover more hidden gems”.

Nominations have been opened to phone boxes which have already been adapted into community libraries, with libraries in Derbyshire, Hertfordshire, Leicestershire and the West Midlands having already signed up.

Phillips said there was a lot to love about the bear’s view of life, both for children and adults.

She said the books were “great to read as an adult because they’re really funny, much funnier than you remember.

“When you read them to children, you remember how much kid-friendly drama there is in them.”