On Christmas Eve, 1956, a little bear sat alone on a shelf in the London department store, Selfridges, one of the dregs of the Christmas toys. Thankfully for him (and us, now in 2015), a BBC cameraman named Michael Bond was doing some last-minute Christmas shopping. He took pity on the bear and gave it to his wife as a gift.
Bond named the little bear Paddington after Paddington Station, and as he says, “I wrote some stories about the bear, more for fun that with the idea of having them published. After 10 days, I found that I had a book on my hands.”
On Oct. 13, 1958, William Collins & Sons (now HarperCollins) published “A Bear Called Paddington,” illustrated by Peggy Fortnum. And by 1965, the Paddington book business was booming, and Bond quit his job at BBC to write.
If you have not been hit with the Paddington craze, now is the time. The new movie was delightful — Nicole Kidman as the sinister taxidermist is just scary enough for kids, and Hugh Bonneville of “Downton Abbey” makes a laugh-out-loud funny Mr. Brown. In the recesses of your memory, you might remember the bright red hat and the blue duffel coat.
Here’s the gist of the story for those of you who have a faint recollection of a bear in a red hat and blue duffel coat who likes orange marmalade. Paddington has impeccable manners and hails from “Darkest Peru,” actually having been modeled after the endangered Andean spectacled bear.
Paddington’s Aunt Lucy sends him to London with a tag around his neck that says “Please look after this bear. Thank you.” The Browns find Paddington underneath the lost-and-found sign in Paddington Station and take him home to 32 Windsor Gardens (an address which does not actually exist, but is an amalgamation of two addresses Bond was familiar with).
Along with the two Brown children, Jonathan and Judy, and the tough housekeeper, Mrs. Bird, Paddington fits right in despite flooding the bathroom and an insatiable appetite for orange marmalade sandwiches.
Now illustrated by R.W. Alley, you and your child can read about Paddington in one of the many stories about him, such as the recently released “Love from Paddington,” or “Paddington Bear in the Garden,” “More About Paddington” (out Feb. 24), and “Paddington at the Beach.”
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