Paddington Helps Out

Michael Bond's Paddington Helps Out is a funny, gentle read for 7 year olds about a very polite bear whose good ideas keep ending in a terrible mess.

What happens

It's the third Paddington book. He's been living with the Browns at number thirty-two Windsor Gardens for over a year now, and he still keeps his scrapbook and important papers in the secret compartment of his old suitcase (just in case).

Each chapter is its own little adventure. A family picnic on the river goes wrong before the boat has even left the bank, and Paddington ends up in the water while his precious hat floats off towards the weir. What turns up inside it when it's fished out is one of the best jokes in the book!

Then Mr Gruber takes him to an auction. Paddington raises his hat to be friendly and finds he's just bought a set of carpentry tools. Those tools lead straight to the next disaster, when Mr Curry next door lets him use his kitchen table to make a magazine rack. You can probably guess how that goes.

Paddington takes everything people say very literally, and that's where most of the laughs come from. He pulls both ropes on the boat because he isn't sure whose left Mr Brown meant. And at the cinema an "A" film turns into an "I beg your pardon film".

Your reader will probably see the trouble coming a page before he does, which is half the fun. He's never naughty on purpose. He's just very keen and completely sure he's helping.

The grown-ups are lovely too. Mrs Bird grumbles about marmalade on everything but always takes his side, especially against grumpy, penny-pinching Mr Curry. And Mr Gruber, with his cocoa and buns, is the kind of friend every small bear deserves.

It's an old-fashioned London of gramophones, newsreels and an organist playing at the cinema, but none of the jokes need explaining. If you've got a reader who's ready for proper chapters but still loves a story that's wrapped up by bedtime, each one here does exactly that.

What to read next

If they haven't met him yet, A Bear Called Paddington is where it all starts, with the Browns spotting a small bear in a funny hat sitting on his suitcase at the station.