An Afternoon With Lindsay Mattick

Sunday, October 25, 2015 at 3:00 pm Archived

In the Travel Alcove, McNally Robinson - Grant Park, 1120 Grant Avenue

Winnipeg launch of Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear (HarperCollins Canada), co-presented by the Winnipeg International Writers Festival as part of our Fall Literary Series.

Come join us for a very special book event for all ages and hear the remarkable true story of the bear who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh.

During World War I, Captain Harry Colebourn, a Canadian veterinarian on his way to serve with cavalry units in Europe, rescued a bear cub in White River, Ontario. He named the bear Winnie, after his hometown of Winnipeg, and he took the bear to war.

Harry Colebourn’s real-life great-granddaughter Lindsay Mattick recounts their incredible journey, from a northern Canadian town to a convoy across the ocean to an army base in England . . . and finally to the London Zoo, where Winnie made a new friend: a boy named Christopher Robin.

Gentle yet haunting illustrations by acclaimed illustrator Sophie Blackall bring the wartime era to life, and are complemented by photographs and ephemera from the Colebourn family archives.