![]() ![]() An album of photographs of Colebourn, Winnie, Christopher Robin, and Mattick and Cole round out this winsome volume. ![]() So, too, are Sophie Blackall’s warm illustrations, which are finely detailed and emotionally expansive, emphasizing the bond between mother and son, and man, child, and bear. ![]() ![]() The conversational style of Mattick’s fictionalized narrative is finely crafted and utterly charming. But he took Winnie to the London Zoo and it was there, years later, that a little boy named Christopher Robin Milne first saw her. He named her Winnie, after his hometown of Winnipeg, and he took the bear to war. And she was a girl In 1914, Harry Colebourn, a veterinarian on his way to tend horses in World War I, followed his heart and rescued a baby bear. Winnie was full of affection and exploits, and it was hard for Harry to imagine leaving her behind in England when word came his unit was leaving for the front. Before Winnie-the-Pooh, there was a real bear named Winnie. Harry named the cub Winnipeg (soon shortened to Winnie) and she charmed everyone. Mattick’s unique perspective and engaging style (punctuated with plenty of humor) make for an irresistible narrative that includes herself and her young son, Cole, as characters as she tells what is clearly a familiar and much loved story to the little boy. Author Lindsay Mattick is the great-granddaughter of Harry Colebourn, the Winnipeg veterinarian who purchased an orphaned cub at a train station while on his way to service in World War I. ![]()
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