Friday Finds: The Adventures of Paddington Bear

I was first introduced to Paddington Bear many years ago when my mother read to me a short children's story about a little bear from Darkest Peru who came to England and lived with the Brown family. I remember that Paddington wore a blue coat and a red hat and he loved marmalade. While I was a fan of Corduroy and had my own Corduroy bear, my older sister had her own Paddington Bear.

Now, all these years later I have rediscovered Paddington. It began a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon a 2-disc DVD set, "The Complete Paddington Bear Collection" (with 42 cartoon stories), at my local library. The cartoons are cute, witty, and entertaining for children and adults. At the time we had borrowed a portable DVD player from some friends for my trip out West, so I played a few of the cartoons for my daughter -- and she really enjoyed them. That's all it took, I was sold. I tracked down the DVD set on Amazon for only $6! and purchased our own set.

Now fast-forward a few weeks. Last Saturday one of the local library branches was having a book sale. Unfortunately by the time I arrived all the "collectors" books (i.e. the ones I was looking for) were sold, but I still came away with some great finds all from the children's section.

One of my great finds was a 5-volume box set of Paddington Bear stories by Michael Bond. The box set published in the 1970s cost me all of $0.62 and included five paperback books: A Bear Called Paddington (1958), More About Paddington (1959), Paddington Helps Out (1960), Paddington At Large (1962), and Paddinton At Work (1966).

I've since discovered that there are four additional Paddington books: Paddington Takes the Air, Paddington Abroad, Paddington Goes to Town, and Paddington Marches On, so I will have to be on the look out for them. Each Paddington book includes chapters and runs less than 150 pages, ideal as a read aloud for young children, or as a read-alone for children 9-12 years.

I am very excited about owning these books and look forward to sharing them with my daughter.