Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear by Lindsay Mattick, illustrated by Sophie Blackall

It's bedtime but young Cole still wants a story, a true story before going to sleep.  And so Cole's mother begins to tell him a story about Harry Colebourn, a veterinarian from Winnipeg who lived long before Cole was born.  When war begins far from Canada, Harry's veterinary services are needed to care for the army's war horses and so he joins the army.

When Harry's troop train makes a stop in White River, Canada, he sees a man with a baby bear and next thing he knows, Harry has bought the bear for $20.00 and names it Winnipeg - nickname Winnie.  Winnie is quite a hit among all the soldiers and proves herself to be a gentle, but rambunctious bear cub.  Eventually, Winnie travels with Harry all the way to England, where Harry and his fellow soldiers will train for war.

When Harry gets his orders and is about to be sent to the front lines in France, he realizes that a battlefield would be too dangerous for Winnie and decides to leave him at the London Zoo for the duration of the war.  It is, indeed, a sad parting between man and bear.

However, Winnie adjusts to life in the zoo and ever the gentle bear, he is popular with the kids who visit, and in particular, one boy named Christopher Robin Milne, who frequently comes to see Winnie with his father.  Christopher even names his teddy bear after Winnie, calling it Winnie- the-Pooh, and out of his love for the real bear comes the books by his dad about Winnie-the-Pooh's adventures with a young boy named Christopher Robin.

As for young Cole, well, he was named after his great-great grandfather - Harry Colebourn.

Finding Winnie is a nice all-in-the-family true story since Linsay Mattick is actually the great-granddaughter of Harry Colebourn.   Son Cole's request for a bedtime story, one he has clearly asked for and heard many times before, cleverly frames the real story about how the tales about Winnie-the-Pooh evolved and it is nicely connected to the present for young readers by Cole's relationship to Harry.  Mattick has even included a family tree so kids can trace the family's relationship.

In addition, Mattick has included photos and artifacts from the time that Harry and Winnie spent together, as well as a photo of herself and Cole at the back of the book.

Sophie Blackall's beautifully rendered watercolor and ink illustrations are bright, detailed and gently soothing, makinf for an excellent merger of story and picture that is sure to please even the youngest Winnie-the-Pooh fan.  She really has captured the affection between Harry and Winnie and Blackall's illustrations will elicit more than a few "ahhhs" for readers.  In fact, she has even made the illustration of the soldiers marching in the rain look not as dreadful as it probably was.

And I really liked that the story is always focused on Winnie and never strays into Harry's time on the western front, so there are no combat illustrations, even though this is technically a WWI story.

Finding Winnie is a lovely addition to any library, a terrific read-aloud (at bedtime, perhaps?), and the perfect introduction to the Winnie-the-Pooh stories for young readers.

And, yes, I know that Finding Winnie is the second book to come out this year about the true story of Winnie-the-Pooh.  Both are equally delightful, each one tells the story equally well, and the illustrations in each are every bit as good as the other.  What to do?  Read them both.  That what I did and even though they tell the same story, they are wonderfully different and I enjoyed both for different reasons.

This book is recommended for readers age 4+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL

Winnie: The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh by Sally M. Walker, illustrated by Jonathan D. Voss

At the start of World War I, a young lieutenant named Harry Colebourn, who also happened to be a veterinarian, is on his way with his regiment to a military training camp in Quebec, when he sees a baby bear on a station platform.  He discovers that the baby bear is for sale, for only $20.00, and Harry decides he has to have it.

The little cub, whose mother had been inadvertently shot, is named after the regiment's hometown of Winnipeg, but immediately shortened to Winnie.  Winnie quickly becomes Harry's constant companion and his company's mascot.  Walker depicts Harry and Winnie playing their own version of hide and seek, Winnie sleeping directly under Harry's cot, and exchanging big bear hugs.

Even when the war worsens and Harry's regiment is sent overseas, Winnie goes, too.  And proves to be a good sailor all the way across the ocean, while Harry lies in bed seasick.  But when it is time to go to the battle front in France, Harry realizes he can't bring Winnie along, after all, she could get seriously hurt on the battlefield.  So Harry makes a tough decision - to place Winnie in the London Zoo for safekeeping.

Winnie and Harry playing

Winnie proves to be such a gentle bear, that children are allowed to play with her and ride on her back.  The war lasts four years, and at the end of it, Harry has another tough decision to make - to take Winnie home with him or let her stay at the zoo, where she has so many friends.  He decides to let her stay at the zoo.  Winnie has one very frequent visitor named Christopher Robin, loves Winnie so much that he renames his teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh, after which his father begins to make up bedtime stories about the adventures of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh that eventually grow into a book.

The real events surrounding the relationship of Harry and Winnie are remarkable enough, but Sally Walker has told it in language the is simply and straightforward for even the youngest of readers to understand.  Jonathan Voss's soft watercolor and pen and ink illustrations done in a palette of browns and greens reminiscent of nature and the military compliment and provide a visual extension of the story.

Walker includes an Author's Note about Harry and Winnie, as well are sources and websites for further exploration.  Be sure to look at the photo's of the real Harry and Winnie on the endpapers.

This is a story the will delight young readers some of whom are already fans of the Winnie-the-Pooh books and perhaps make a few new ones.

This book is recommended for readers age 5+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL

Today is Nonfiction Monday - be sure to visit this week's roundup

Soldier Bear by Bibi Dumon Tak, illustrated by Philip Hopman, translated by Laura Warkinson

When a group of five Polish men end up together in British army base in Iran after being released from a Russian prison in 1942, they quickly become part of the 22nd Transport Company.  One of their assignment is the task of transporting large amounts of artillery ammunition from Iran to a larger British base in Palestine.  On their very first trip, they encounter a young boy en route dragging a large moving sack.  Inside is a small baby bear, a Syrian brown bear whose mother either abandoned it or had died.  The five softhearted Polish friends decide to trade some objects for the bear, and before long, they even decide to keep the baby bear, no matter what their superiors at the base say.  And so they name the bear Voytek, Polish for smiling warrior.

Perhaps because there is a war on, but things are a little loosey-gooset at the base and the men are actually permitted to keep their new baby bear, feeding it condensed milk in an empty vodka.   And it doesn't take long for the Voytek to become part of army life in the desert.  He haunts the cook for scraps, uses all the shower water to cool down and becomes best friends with an unnamed stray dalmatian, and enemies with a monkey named Kaska, who delights in tormenting Voytek at every opportunity and who rides around the base on a large dog named Stalin.

As the war goes on, the Polish soldiers are eventually given orders to sail for Italy after the Allied soldiers have successfully been able to push back the Germans.  And yes, because Voytek was officially listed as Private Voytek, he was allowed to go along.  In fact, the whole menagerie is allowed to board ship and travel to Rome, though Voytek wasn't too fond of sailing.

Voytek was a strong, sometimes goofy bear who seems to think loading and unloading heavy artillery ammo is some kind of game with the men.  Imagine a bear carrying a bomb that could blow up the whole army base if dropped, but the men and even the brass has faith in Voytek's ability to safely transport deadly ammunition.  

I often found myself laughing out loud while I was reading Soldier Bear.  There was something in the writing style and the antics of the animals reminded me so much of Roald Dahl's WW2 book Going Solo.  Voytek was definitely a bear with his own personality who seemed to believe he was just "one of the guys" which may explain his penchant for beer and cigarettes.  Of course, part of what makes this story so charming is that most of the time the soldiers are based in the Middle East, which did not see the kind of fighting that was happening in Europe.  It was a much more relaxed setting and really allowed for the antics of people, bears, dogs and even the monkey Kaska more easily.

Soldier Bear is an absolutely delightful fictionalized account of the soldierly life of the real Voytek and made even more delightful because of the wonderfully whimsical illustrations of Philip Hopman, a Dutch artist, on the cover and throughout the book.

I loved this book and even though Voytek was a beer-drinking smoker, would not hesitate to recommend it to Middle Grade readers.  I think that they will be able see that the fact that Voytek was such a good friend and that he made the war easier for everyone he came in contact with, especially this five Polish fathers, is the more important aspect of this story.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was purchased for my personal library

More information about the real Voytek and his life after the war can be found HERE

There are a number of short videos online about Voytek like this one that you can find at YouTube: