Paddington at Work by Michael Bond and Peggy Fortnum (illustrator)
| Paddington at Work by Michael Bond and Peggy Fortnum (illustrator) | |
|
| |
| Category: Confident Readers | |
| |
Reviewer: John Lloyd
 | |
| Summary: Another fine collection of messes for a bear to have got himself (or others) into. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 144 | Date: July 2014 |
| Publisher: Harper Collins Children's Books | |
| ISBN: 9780006753674 | |
|
Share on: | |
|
| |
You remember the stories of a bear called Paddington coming to London from darkest Peru – leaving his aunt Lucy behind in a retirement home in Lima? Once on these shores he met up with the Brown family, and then all hell broke loose. He blundered into one misfortune, made mistake after error after miscomprehension, and only barely got away with his marmalade sandwiches intact. Well, these are these same stories – but with a slight twist. This is the second coming of Paddington, as he is once again on a trans-Atlantic liner, returning this time from a holiday back home. Only, this time he will not quite reach London when the disturbing adventures of the bear and the Brown family are resumed…
Another twist is that the stories are not so self-contained in this volume – where we get what looks like seven, some are better thought of as single stories over two chapters, so in all we have five tales. There was always some slight interlocking, even in the first book, but here it is more prevalent. And it's a bit of a pity that the first two stories are not the greatest, meaning it seems to be two tales for Paddington to meet up with the Browns (and Mrs Bird, of course) and dock in Britain, and two tales for him to be swindled out of a small fortune and regain it at the Stock Exchange. Certainly the TV series would have short-changed its audience if it had presented the second half of these double-bills apart from, or without recapping, the first.
After that, however, we are on much more familiar territory, with tighter, funnier and stronger little episodes in the life of this most singular bear. All the relationships he has are present and correct – with his anxious yet doting human family, and his antiques dealer friend Mr Gruber, with the crabby and less savoury chap next door, Mr Curry – and particularly with misfortune. If you want an abject lesson in how eagerly he meets it and comes out trumps, just turn to 'Too Much off the Top'; if you want the dryness of the humour and how Paddington gets things wrong, witness him arriving at Judy's school early for an evening of entertainment, and being told someone has laid on some marmalade sandwiches. Both these last stories in this volume must surely be classics of the kind.
There are still a couple of things that stop the stories from being universally readable. Bond takes it as read that we are all on board at the beginning, and so even when Paddington can introduce his family to someone else at length and get everyone up to speed as per who's who and why, he doesn't. And this being a ship where the entrants in the fancy dress ball range from Mark Anthony to Beau Brummel – well, let's just say these tales aren't as current as they once were. But, amid general agreement, I must declare them well worth visiting.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy.
If these books appeal, you can always go the whole hog and get them all in one.
Michael Bond's Original Paddington Bear Books in Chronological Order
Please share on: 
Facebook, 
Twitter and
Instagram
You can read more book reviews or buy Paddington at Work by Michael Bond and Peggy Fortnum (illustrator) at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Paddington at Work by Michael Bond and Peggy Fortnum (illustrator) at Amazon.com.
Comments
Like to comment on this review?
Just send us an email and we'll put the best up on the site.
