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BumblePuppy Press publishes The Inclusive Winnie-the-Pooh
The 100 acre wood no longer for boys only
Published December 1, 2025
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, DECEMBER 8, 2025 — Publisher Geoffrey Dow has announced that the BumblePuppy Press has entered the world of classic children’s books — with a twist.
Featuring the original illustrations by E.H. Shepard, The Inclusive Winnie-the-Pooh updates A.A. Milne’s classic, Winnie-the-Pooh, for an era when male is not the default state of being.
When Dow started reading Milne’s stories to his then two-year old daughter, he was struck by two things. First, those stories were every bit as good as he remembered, and second, that all of the characters but one (Kanga — a mother) were gendered male.
So he decided to switch things up: Christopher Robin became Christina, and both Eeyore and Piglet also made the transition from boys to girls.
“Why should a story featuring stuffed toy animals be a boys-only club?” Dow wondered, and then decided that, since the book has fallen into the public domain in both Canada and the United States, he would publish it as he had read it to his daughter, so that she would have a copy of the book as it had been read to her.
The result is The Inclusive Winnie-the-Pooh, which keeps the wit, the adventure, and the pathos of Milne’s original, while making the stories tales that everyone can relate to.
Geoffrey Dow is a long time editor and writer. He studied under the late Judith Merril in the 1980s, has written for CBC Radio, the Globe and Mail, and the magazine Humanist Perspectives. He blogs occasionally at www.ed-rex.com and about his adventures in fatherhood at www.papazesser.ca.
Details
Publisher: BumblePuppy Press
Release date: Dec. 1, 2025
ISBN (Amazon Paper):978-1-0692409-5-8
ISBN (Paper – forthcoming):
978-1-0692409-4-1
ASIN: 1069240958
Goodreads Page coming soon
COVER ARTISTS:
Biography
Short
The proprietor behind the BumblePuppy Press, Geoffrey Dow is the editor of The Inclusive Winnie-the-Pooh. He lives in Ottawa, where he is also the full-time dad to his daughter, Baobao.
Medium
Geoffrey Dow is an editor, a publisher, sometimes writer, and a papa. He has been published in the magazine Humanist Perspectives, the Globe and Mail, and was a story producer for CBC Radio.
In his youth, he published zines, was a failed novelist, and, later, was the managing editor of the late True North Perspective online news magazine.
He is the editor of The Inclusive Winnie-the-Pooh, the proprietor of the BumblePuppy Press, and perhaps the happiest papa in Ottawa.
Long
Geoffrey Dow is an editor, a publisher, a sometime writer and critic, and a full-time father of a six year-old.
He has worked as a story editor for CBC Radio, published book reviews in the magazine Humanist Perspectives and the Globe and Mail, and was for many years the managing editor of the online news magazine True North Perspective.
He is the publisher behind the BumblePuppy Press, for which he also sometimes dabbles in cover design.
In his youth, he was co-editor of the newspaper CounterPress, and later published the ‘zines Tenement and Edifice Rex.
He maintains, and still blogs about his adventures in fatherhood at www.papazesser.ca, and about art, sex, and philosophy at www.ed-rex.com.
He lives in Ottawa with his wife and daughter, and is more than a little surprised to find that he likes the city after living for close to a quarter of a century in Toronto.
He is the editor of The Inclusive Winnie-the-Pooh, and hasn’t completely given up on the idea of one day writing a novel of his own.
ARCS, interviews, and more
If you are a reviewer or book-blogger, feel free to download a PDF copy of The Inclusive Winnie-the-Pooh at the link above. If you would like a paper copy of the book, he can be contact via geoffdow@bppress.ca or by telephone at 613-413-7231.