A Bear Called Paddington (Paddington #1)

As I was reading the third entry of Red Rising, I found myself slowly losing interest in it as its story took a more predictable and generic turn, and it is on a recent work trip taking me through Paddington station that I came across a 65 year anniversary edition of A Bear Called Paddington, the first entry of the Paddington bear series which started it all.

Purchased with the intent of reading it as a quick palate cleanser, the book did indeed only take around 4 hours to read (and that’s at my relatively slow English reading speed). It however did not fail at making an impact. A Bear Called Paddington is delightfully innocent in its premise and its storytelling. A bear is found at a train station in the UK and he’s wearing a hat…and he’s talking…and a couple humans come around and decide the bear is going to be a part of their family…and everyone is fine with that. It borders on naïve but so does the storytelling. Paddington seems to be able to get away with anything on account of being a really cute bear.

The book is written for children, Michael Bond did not hide from and plainly states that as such in the introductory blurb but there is something here that will offer comfort to adults as well. Unlike other children’s story which sometimes feel like they try to tell more complicated story than need be in the name of adventure ending up in awkward Deus Ex Machina resolutions, Paddington’s childishness only stems from its premise. If you do not take issue with the fact that people in this world automatically accept the concept of a talking bear then the subsequent stories are really just stories of a child living his best life…the child just happens to also be a bear.

In that way A Bear Called Paddington strongly resembles the children’s stories of Le Petit Nicolas by René Goscinny down to having simplistic but delightfully cute drawings interspersed among the writing. So much so that I might slightly extend my break from Red Rising to revisit Le Petit Nicolas to confirm that comparison.

There is little else to add about this book, aside from it being a classic whose reputation precedes it, A Bear Called Paddington is a cozy break from both the stressful life of being an adult and the sometimes too mature modern day writing without ever being too childish to enjoy.