More Than Marmalade: Michael Bond and the Story of Paddington Bear
x wrong When he wrote A Bear Called Paddington 19 years later he gave Paddington a warm shelter with a loving family something he wished for those frightened Ger man Jewish children Throughout his life Bond sympathized with refu gees His stories reflect the confusion of coming to an unfamiliar place Immigrants need to learn new lan guages They have to figure out customs that differ from their own In a letter from Paddington written a decade ago Bond protested the United Kingdom Border Detention Center’s unjust treatment of young refugees Whenever I hear about children from foreign coun tries being put into detention centres I think how lucky I am to be living at number 32 Windsor Gar dens with such nice people as Mr and Mrs Brown Mrs Bird who looks after the Browns says if she had her way she would set the children free and lock up a few politicians in their place to see how they liked it Fortunately for Paddington the Brown family adopted the bear from darkest Peru and helped him adapt Of course Paddington’s life still wasn’t easy He tried hard to do the right thing but often he ended up making a mess The trouble he caused always needed to AUTHOR’S NOTE
xi be untangled which is much of what made Paddington’s escapades so much fun Altogether Bond wrote over 150 chapter-length sto ries for the books Fifteen Paddington novels have been translated into 40 languages and have sold more than 35 million copies By writing about Paddington’s adven tures Bond gave all those lost and lonely children from World War II a happy ending Today Paddington is as adored as ever thanks to the recent success of big-screen movies based on the series The debut film released in 2014 and simply titled Pad dington delighted Michael Bond himself Like his hopeful bear the author’s remarkable story begs to be told in this time of domestic and international unrest Though details of Bond’s childhood are limited it was possible to piece them together using his own words While some of the author’s quotes in this book have been adapted to better fit a middle grade biography they have been taken from verifiable sources This book is a rare account of his life with fictionalized scenes based in fact to paint an intimate picture of a modest man Bond really did carry on lengthy conversations with Paddington Bear In fact Paddington was so much a personal friend and part of the family that to this day the original bear rescued from a store shelf on Christ mas Eve has never appeared in public AUTHOR’S NOTE
xii I sincerely hope you enjoy reading More than Marma lade a biography of a pair of the world’s most inspiring characters as much as I enjoyed writing it Bear-y Truly Yours Rosanne Tolin AUTHOR’S NOTE
Michael and Paddington's Map of London Maida Vale Little Venice Barbiean Portobello Estate Road DO Notting Pation selfridges Hill caversham park In Reading surrey Haslemere Reading palace buckingham 38 miles southwest 57 miles West
