Paddington's Busy Day

by Michael Bond, David McKee

Paddington finds himself at a loose end, which spells trouble for the Browns family!They have lots of suggestions for jobs to keep him occupied but Paddington's ways of doing things are not always what's expected ...

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Michael Bond, CBE was an English children's author. He was the creator of Paddington Bear and wrote about the adventures of a guinea pig named Olga da Polga, as well as the animated BBC TV series The Herbs. Bond also wrote culinary mystery stories for adults featuring Monsieur Pamplemousse and his faithful bloodhound, Pommes Frites.

Reviews

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paddington does not enjoy being at a loose end and when it was raining made it worse as he could not go out, so Mr and Mrs Brown suggest some things for him to do to occupy himself and avoid being bored.

Paddington goes along with their suggestions but, unfortunately, things do not go according to plan or according to how the Browns thought they ought to.

It did not augur well when he was given some paints and a bowl of fruit, a canvas and some paints with the suggestion that he paint the fruit. He did so but not in the way that was expected ... the fruit in the bowl was all blue by the time he had finished - at least it matched the wallpaper!

Making some pastry in the kitchen with Mrs Brown was the next suggestion and even though he ended up with pastry all over himself, he decided that he would have a look at his stamp collection. But he was still covered with pastry so this necessitated a shower.

After the shower he went up to the loft to have a go at tidying up but while up there he had an accident and this made him go and collect his paints, his stamps and the remainder of the pastry so that he could make up for the damage he had done.

It was certainly a novel idea and when the browns saw what he had done, they were amazed at what he had done ... but Paddington had a word for it!

Finally Mrs Bird takes him for a bath as he was a very sticky bear!

[Read3r’z Re-Vu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paddington was one of my favourites growing up and I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting my three year old to have the patience for this book but she was captivated by the illustrations and talking about all the thing she could see happening so this is a great book for developing your toddlers language skills.

- Crystal

[Meredith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stuck indoors on a rainy day, Paddington does a series of activities with an escalating degree of mess.

Having grown up with the Paddington from 1976 BBC series, whose exploits consisted of lovably comic, low key misunderstandings, this picture book was too over the top for me although it is probably to the taste of contemporary younger readers accustomed to in your face slapstick.

[Kylie Abecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh how I do love this bear! Seeing the world through his innocent mind truly melts my heart.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ya know, it was good. I liked it. I would read more Paddington. A bear that makes life harder for a bunch of English people? Sign me up.

[Sarah Baines · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, quick read with gorgeous illustrations.

[svejkovat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of Paddington’s better adventures, in fact - not an adventure at all. Following his peculiar fruit antics I was relatively underwhelmed. Still, everyone loves Paddington.

[anahita]

makes me want a rainy day :p shows how kind paddington is at heart even if he is a little clumsy