Should America deport Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends?

Is it time Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends were sent back to Britain? Need the UK repatriate them forcibly? This year marks the hundredth anniversary of A.A.

Milne’s evergreen creation, Winnie-the-Pooh, the beloved “bear of very little brain.” Although the character first appeared in a poem in a 1924 poem, it wasn’t until 1926 that the teddy was given his own starring role in “Winnie-the-Pooh.”Pooh Bear was inspired by a stuffed animal called Edward that Milne had bought for his son, Christopher Robin, from Harrods.Today, that original model for Winnie, along with the toys that inspired his equally beloved friends Tigger, Kanga, Eeyore and Piglet — the original Roo, alas, is long since lost — are housed in the New York Public Library.

They sit in the Polonsky Exhibition of the library’s greatest treasures, alongside a Mozart manuscript and a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio.NYPL is sparing no effort on Pooh’s centenary.A new exhibition, “Silly Old Bear!” features reproductions of the original Milne stories and E.

H.Shepard’s cherished illustrations.

Also on display are versions of the story in different languages — including Latin, so the classically minded can enjoy the adventures of the ursus pusilli ingenii.A particular coup for NYPL’s show is the gift Queen Camilla made earlier this year, a modern reproduction of Roo, granted in celebration of America’s 250th.

But across the pond, many Brits are rankled.Why should America get to host Pooh’s big birthday? He is, after all, a subject of the Crown.

Winnie and his friends arrived in New York in 1947 as part of a publicity tour organized by the book’s US publisher E.P.Dutton.

They stayed in the Big Apple largely because Christopher Robin, who had wearied of being associated with the characters from his childhood, made no effort to reclaim them.Although they were loaned back to Britain briefly in 1969 and 1976, the toys mostly hung around Dutton’s offices before being do...