‘Winnie-The-Pooh’ Book On How To React During School Shootings Draws Disdain
By Mikelle Leow, 30 May 2023

“Oh, bother” might be an apt response to new educational materials being shared around by Dallas schools.
An innocent-looking booklet featuring Winnie-the-Pooh and friends has taken parents aback as, instead of focusing on topics like friendship, it teaches children what to do in the face of a mass shooting and other dangerous scenarios.
“If there is danger, let Winnie-the-Pooh and his crew show you what to do!” reads the cover of Stay Safe, which centers around critical “run, hide, fight” responses. The booklet doesn’t mention guns, and it refers to attacks as “something that is not right.”
The text was not approved nor endorsed by Disney. It was published by Houston safety training firm Praetorian Consulting and created alongside Texas cops and teachers.
With A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories having lost their copyright and entering the public domain last year, creators now have free agency to adapt the works. On the heels of a slasher film called Blood and Honey and a horror game entitled Hundred Acre Wood, Stay Safe is the latest to a string of unforeseen interpretations of the childhood favorite.

“If danger is near, do not fear. HIDE like Pooh does until the police appear,” one page reads. “We should all hide without making a sound in a place where we cannot be found.”
Primary caregivers lament that the reading material “normalizes” these life-or-death situations.
Among the worried parents is Cindy Campos, whose two children attend a school in the Dallas Independent School District. At first, she wondered if the book was gifted to her youngest son by his teacher in prekindergarten, but she later learned that her first-grader owned a copy too.
Winnie the Pooh is now teaching Texas kids about active shooters because the elected officials do not have the courage to keep our kids safe and pass common sense gun safety laws. https://t.co/PNXhIlrcxq pic.twitter.com/crPDeQ9dZm
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) May 23, 2023
Campos says the book was stuffed into her son’s backpack with no instructions, and that it was “unsolicited advice,” as quoted by the New York Times.
Other parents who have also complained of the lack of instructions say the book’s publication is “tone-deaf,” as the first anniversary of the Robb Elementary School shooting, which killed 19 students and two teachers, had just passed.
This month, there was another shooting nearby at an outdoor mall in Allen, Texas, north of Dallas, when a gunman shot and killed eight, including three kids.
On the Praetorian Consulting website, the booklet’s co-author Brittany Adcox-Flores explains why Stay Safe was created: “Unfortunately, the number of active shooter incidents in and around our schools continue to rise, and policies and approaches needed to solve this issue are complicated and dynamic.”
The books started appearing in children's bookbags around the one year anniversary of the Uvalde shooting where 19 elementary students were killed
— News News News (@NewsNew97351204) May 26, 2023
Passages tell students: 'If danger is near, do not fear. HIDE like Pooh until the police appear' pic.twitter.com/fI3mqEJRgb
Adcox-Flores adds that the firm decided to pen a booklet for children in an “age-appropriate and gentle manner” by looking to “well-known and beloved characters of Winnie-the-Pooh, which are in the public domain.”
The author’s note elaborates: “Our only intent is to equip young children with the knowledge they may need should there be a school intrusion and our greatest hope is that this booklet will be considered obsolete in the future.”
The distribution has been criticized by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who tweeted: “Winnie-the-Pooh is now teaching Texas kids about active shooters because the elected officials do not have the courage to keep our kids safe and pass common sense gun safety laws.”
Campos shares that children are prone to asking all kinds of follow-up questions after you read a story to them. “How do you go to bed letting them know, ‘Yeah, this is what you do if you get shot up at school,’ and then let them go to sleep?” she questions.
The school district explains in a statement that it sent the booklet home for parents to advise their children on how to protect themselves during dangerous situations in schools.
“Unfortunately, we did not provide parents any guide or context,” the Dallas Independent School District acknowledges in an email sent to press outlets like the Times. “We apologize for the confusion and are thankful to parents who reached out to assist us in being better partners.”
[via The New York Times and Sky News, images via various sources]