Michael Bond’s Paddington Takes the Air is a warm, funny read for 7 year olds, and it starts with a bit of tooth going down the kitchen waste disposal.<\/p>\n
Paddington is very upset. It was his best tooth, he says, and he cleaned it twice a day. Now there’s nothing to put under his pillow!<\/p>\n
So it’s off to Mr Leach the dentist. Bears have forty-two teeth, which means extra charges. Paddington can’t see why Mr Leach is still practising after all these years (he’d sooner pay extra for someone who knows what he’s doing).<\/p>\n
Then Mr Leach tells him to bite down hard and not let go, whatever happens. Paddington is a very obedient bear. Poor Mr Leach’s thumb!<\/p>\n
In the next story Mr Gruber gives him an old sewing machine. Paddington turns out to be surprisingly good at tablecloths and tea towels. Then Mr Curry arrives with a pair of trousers to be taken in, and he wants it done cheaply.<\/p>\n
Paddington offers to do the job himself for fifty pence. So Mr Curry fetches a whole pile of trousers, including the ones from his best suit. Can you guess which pair Paddington practises on first?<\/p>\n
After that it’s the end-of-term gymkhana at Judy’s school. Paddington has been training on a pouf in the Browns’ sitting room. His first round earns him four hundred and fifty-two faults, most of them for trampling the judge’s best bowler hat.<\/p>\n
The jokes are mostly about words. Paddington hears everything in his own way and takes it all VERY seriously. You can almost see the grown-ups trying to keep a straight face.<\/p>\n
Mr Gruber is lovely here too. He’s always on Paddington’s side, with cocoa in the deck chairs outside his shop and something kind to say when things go wrong.<\/p>\n
This is book nine in the series, and the opening stories each stand on their own. That makes it great for bedtime, a chapter at a time. If your reader has a trip to the dentist coming up, they might enjoy Paddington’s view of a chair that rises into the air at the press of a button.<\/p>\n
If they’re after more of Mr Curry wanting a job done on the cheap, you’ll find Paddington at Large in the library too. There he offers five pence for a few apples to be picked, and before long his lawn mower is hanging from a tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michael Bond’s Paddington Takes the Air is a warm, funny read for 7 year olds, and it starts with a bit of tooth going down the kitchen waste disposal. Paddington is very upset. It was his best tooth, he says, and he cleaned it twice a day. Now there’s nothing to put under his pillow! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14983,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":14625,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Paddington at Large","lr_seo_hook":"Paddington meets the dentist, a sewing machine and a show-jumping horse.","lr_series_id":297,"lr_series_name":"Paddington","lr_series_position":9,"lr_series_label":"","lr_author_order":"1268"},"book_tag":[23],"age_group":[19],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[1268],"class_list":["post-14984","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-funny-books","age_group-books-for-7-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-michael-bond"],"yoast_title":"Paddington Takes the Air by Michael Bond | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Paddington meets the dentist, a sewing machine and a show-jumping horse. For ages 7+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n