Mr Bear Part One

 Dear Mr Finch,

Many years ago - well, just over twenty years actually - I lived in Lincoln. Because of a bad combination of joblessness, lack of transport and an unfortunate attack outside the cathedral in late summer I was never very happy there BUT I did have a magical couple of years working at a higher education college not far from the centre of the city called Bishop Grosseteste College. It’s now just Lincoln Bishop University which is a great shame, losing a great deal of the character that made it such a wonderful and idiosyncratic place to work.

Me during the Lincoln years, but confusingly in Grimsby

Because it really felt like a small idyll - small enough for you to know most of the staff and students, departments which had their own dogs and crammed into an old 19th century building which was not large but had its own chapel and was several storeys high and surprisingly easy to get lost in.

I was employed as a librarian, by the retiring head librarian Chris who was leaving because he could see the eccentricities slowly but steadily being stripped away and couldn’t face having to compromise to things such as computers and meetings and, frankly, most of the things I also struggle with. He probably thought as a youngish professional librarian I was a safe pair of hands but he also probably saw my inner eccentric curmudgeon as well and felt I was a bit of a kindred spirit.

Chris at the extension opening of the new BGC library. He is, quite correctly, looking unimpressed on the right hand side with the stick, staring at the camera with the disdain of a man who will ever see technology and conformity as the enemy 

He was a wonderful boss. Grumpy at unnecessary change and technology (and a voluble atheist, forever cross that someone had signed him up to a book catalogue not as Chris Child but, wonderfully, as Christ Child),  he loved non league football and steam engines and nothing more than turning up early to tinker with his library catalogue, clearly his own version of a steam engine. The college used an impossibly rare cataloguing system that had not been updated since the mid seventies called Bliss, mainly because it kept child development and education together and as a primarily teacher training college Chris and his predecessors felt this was significant. The system was kept in four huge and slightly collapsing blue volumes, heavily annotated by Chris and other head librarians - as there were no substantial computers when the system was last updated, that had to be inserted and improvised somewhere by the head librarian. Thusly, the short cut of every librarian ever - of checking what other librarians had catalogued a book as - was impossible, because each of the hundred libraries who used the system worldwide had adapted it their own way. I loved this. It was exactly the sort of wayward library I had dreamed of working in and, frankly, spoiled me for every library I worked in afterwards.

The point of this - although I could tell so many stories about Chris and maybe will one day - is that Bishop Grosseteste as a teacher training college was very focused on all elements of education and had an incredible children’s book collection. I even shared an office with the children’s librarian.

And did I pay any attention? No, sadly I did not.

I was by this time slowly getting back into comics, after an incident in Nottingham Forbidden Planet with a copy of Jeffrey Brown’s book Clumsy falling on my head pointing the way forward. But I did not pay any attention whatsoever to the children’s collection. And do I now feel foolish? Yes. Yes I do.

Although - although - I did rescue a few items from the book sale shelf over my couple of years there. And one of them, frankly falling apart, was something by Chizuko Kuratomi and Kozo Kakimoto called Mr Bear. I only saved part of the cover but when many years later I did find another Mr Bear book I immediately recognised it and bought it.

And this is the long introduction of how I discovered my favourite children’s picture books of all time.

To be very much continued!

The Little Worm Book by Janet and Allan Ahlberg

 My Dear Mr Finch,

Today I am going to talk you in brief about a little book that means a great deal to me. It is The Little Worm Book by Janet & Allan Ahlberg, from 1979. I have no idea why my parents bought it for me or where from, but I do know that when I was about six or seven it was one of the funniest things I had ever read and I loved it dearly (that and The Perishers Rather Big Little Book... About Marlon by Maurice Dodd, which featured the stupidest character from that comic strip/ cartoon but had some genuinely very funny sections that would make me tear up with laughter).

Anyway. Back to the Little Worm Book. We take the Ahlbergs for granted, because they were so prolific - both together and after Janet’s tragic early death with Allan and many, many collaborators. Their genius is that made their books look simple and straightforward, but the more you read them the more you realise that these things took time, effort and care to be so joyously easy to read.

The first page sets the tone immediately, a faux guide book or text book that even a six year old gets the tone of. But immediately it breaks off into simple absurdity.

I was obviously struggling with the word “the” and it looks like I was underlining it here (carefully and in pencil, because even as a six year old I loved books as books), but obviously doing so with a book that brought me great pleasure.

I suspect this page appealed because my dad was forever the sort of person who spent walks pointing out flora and fauna and wildlife and telling us about things. I first discovered the writer Ivor Cutler through my ex-brother in law (who I am still very fond of) who likened a passage in Life In A Scotch Sitting Room where father takes the family for a windy walk while he points at thistles to family walks, and he wasn’t wrong. So this page clearly resonated and was always a favourite because there’s nothing a kid likes more than a slightly cheeky teasing of things they love, and I did love those walks. This page wouldn’t have resonated for everybody reading it but does suggest the Ahlbergs knew what kids lived like and were happy cheerily mocking those things lightly.

I loved these pages because even as a child I liked a joke to be repeated and stretched, plus there’s even a hint of danger with those dead bodies (which as a kid I’m sure I thought were sleeping). And it’s also not afraid to use names a child wouldn’t know like Agincourt (I’m still not entirely sure what Borodino or Bull Run is but can guess the context from the art) which hopefully, and almost certainly with me, would result in asking your parents to explain. My dad invested in a copy of the Children’s Britannica in the late seventies and was always encouraging us to look things up in them, and I can almost see him getting the volume down to show me how to look things up and explain what Agincourt was. These are very happy memories, especially since my dad has been not with us for several years, and possibly was part of my reasoning to become a librarian in my teens. My dad was very proud of his reference section.

The most striking thing about the book as an adult is that I clearly took so much from this without realising it. In my first self published comic, I did a little two page potted guide to strange creatures I had dreamed about and would follow it up a few years later with a couple of books about creatures called Hadrons, based on little figures my wife had made (and who turned up in our world when the Large Hadron Collider was switched on - at a show in Manchester many years ago a woman saw one of the books and laughed because her friend worked at the Collider and bought a copy for her, which I am very proud of). In retrospect that’s clearly my tribute to this book (as is my later, and slightly more pointed, Life Cycle of the PE Teacher). I’m amazed how much the writing and the art influenced me without me realising it.

As a child I used to think the cartoons of Hanna-Barbera were made by two American housewives called Hannah and Barbara, around the kitchen tables after their husbands had gone to work (I was weirdly fond of old American sitcoms like The Beverley Hillbillies and I Love Lucy as a small child, and assumed the women and their husbands were of that vintage). Sadly this is not how they were made, despite the clear image in e mind that said otherwise, but I do like to imagine Janet and Allan Ahlberg chuckling away at the table or on the sofa of an evening thinking of jokes for this. There are so many wonderful books that they made so it’s not a surprise some are less known than others, but this is a real treat and a joy and I’m so happy I still have my childhood copy.

Until next time!

Chris Browning
Todmorden, West Yorkshire

The Ministry of Mysteries

 Swemmit is an island full of mysteries and secrets but, according to a law passed in 1855, they are seen as markedly and vitally different and curated by two different departments: The Ministry of Mysteries and the Society of Secrets

The Ministry of Mysteries is run out of Swemmit House by tiger Osiris Kinchip, and his two assistants - a koala called Big Norm Ganderblast and the frog Señor Lopez - who both investigate, record and catalogue all mysteries on the island. They do not solve them, goodness no, but someone has to keep track don’t they?

More Margaret Wise Brown

Dear Mr Finch, 

Just sending you another quick letter about Margaret Wise Brown. I've been reading Leonard S Marcus' excellent biography of her, Awakened by the Moon, and it's becoming more and more apparent that her greatest curse is that she innovated so much we now take for granted. There's a theme running through it that, as an ex librarian yourself and as an ex librarian myself, I thought you would find particularly fascinating of how much control over American children's fiction tastes was held by innovative - but quite traditional and conservative - librarian Anne Carroll Moore. A vital figure in highlighting the importance of books to the development of children, especially through the New York Public Library's lists of important books and her reviews for the Horn Book, she also had very traditional views of what made for "proper" literature for children and Brown was not one of those.

Brown came through the Bank Street College of Education which gave her writing for children a sense of novelty and focus that picture books didn't have at the time. She and her collaborators, who went on to create their own books, seemed to be innovating all the time but as is often the way with innovators we now don't see those moments of brilliance in quite the same way because we take them for granted. It's the ultimate irony really, that hotbed of creativity and new ways of talking to children and their parents is now the norm, so none of it has quite the same sense of shock that it must have had at the time.

Her most famous book, Goodnight Moon, is particularly easy to underestimate. It seems so simple and almost basic in art and writing that you have to come at it fresh to see quite how quietly revolutionary it must have been. Because I didn't grown up with this book - it seems far more iconic in America, so my wife immediately knew it - this was my first proper reading and what impressed me most was how much work has gone into making something that looks so simple and straightforward.

The story is simplicity itself. A bunny is going to sleep. All the details are very subtle though - the bunny is clearly reluctant to sleep and keeps shifting on the pillow (including a lovely moment where it seems to be trying to get out of bed); there's a balloon which suggests there's been an exciting day - and done so lightly it practically begs a child (and parent) to fill in the gaps in the narrative themselves. The old lady is presumably the mum but why not called the mum? Why do the kittens not bother with the small mouse? It's such a simple trick but a beautiful one to engage deeper with the book.

The text itself is also very simple, but Brown's best trick is how the text repeats itself before slowly losing elements, surely mirroring how the brain close to the inevitability of sleep starts forgetting crucial steps in the thought process before sleep overwhelms you. Together with the image of the bunny wriggling and reluctant to sleep - and maybe even that balloon - you start to fill in your own backstory without even realising it.

As with so many artistic pioneers, it's hard to imagine how revolutionary it must have been at the time. The innovations of Hitchcock or Orson Welles, and even Buster Keaton and Eisenstein, are so second nature to us now you have to try and remove yourself from the decades of art that have refined and revived those inspired moments of novelty before you can see the genius of the original work.

Morr and Pippin, Booksellers

 Morr and Pippin, booksellers, have been a Swemmit institution since 1653. Owned by the Morr and Pippin families since 1785 - and found in the cobbled area of shops just outside St Tossock - it has provided reading material for the whole island for many years. It sells both new and second hand books, and is a vast shop. Some say it is four storeys high while others insist there's a basement and even an attic on top of that. Some have even found a courtyard deep within the cavernous rooms of books, but nobody has seen that place since at least 1963. 

There's a certain tradition in Morr and Pippin. They'll have what you're looking for and more besides. Traditionally you'll always find one treasure you never knew existed, and then find one even more miraculous volume that you will - always - accidentally lose sight of for a brief second and then never see again. Every time. Like something from a dream, you'll slowly forget what it was but only have the memory that it would have been the greatest thing you had ever seen remaining like steam after a great cup of tea.

The current owners are Sebastian Morr (bear, interested in gardens, history and hats) and Osiris Pippin (otter, interested in crime fiction, mysteries and the history of teapots) and are the latest in a long, long line of Morrs and Pippins to run the shop. For the first hundred years or so, the shop was owned by the mysterious Lady Ottilie Scubbard, a masked figure who weaves throughout the seventeenth century on Swemmit. She is linked to smuggling, hidden treasures, the disappearance and reappearance of St Robards abbey and the infamous theft of the then Swemmit royal family (the Blonwynns) most treasured possession, The Macpelah Scabbard. Over three hundred years later it has still not been found.

What is most mysterious that for the fifty years it was run by Lady Scubbard, and then her immediate acolytes, it was still called Morr and Pippin. It was as if she knew whose safe hands the shop would be in. And indeed the current owners have protected the vast collection - and the shop's many mysteries - with joy and wisdom.

Letter Number One

My Dear Mr Finch!

Many thanks for your last letter. Life on Swemmit sounds positively idyllic, as does the array of strange and unusual cakes made by Aloysius. Maybe one day I can visit and try one for myself!

Anyway - as you know, I’ve long wanted to write and draw picture books for children because they combine everything I love about storytelling and using pictures to tell stories. I had an accident about two years ago where I broke my wrist and couldn’t draw comfortably for a long time (before that I rarely stopped), but have recently started to create again and with a focus on picture books. Thanks to your great idea, I’m going to review a few favourites in letters to you to try and see why they work so well and hopefully will learn things so I can work towards making them myself.

Today’s choice is… When The Wind Blew by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Geoffrey Hayes. It was originally illustrated by Rosalie Slocum but Hayes redid the art in the seventies which is a shame because the original art is lovely - it’s very Wanda Gag in places, and full of character and some particularly gorgeous use of colour. But Hayes art is I have to say particularly beautiful and full of character - each of the “seventeen cats and one little blue grey kitten” is drawn with genuine care and love which helps the story because clearly that’s the position of the hero of the story, the old, old lady.

Margaret Wise Brown’s most famous book is obviously Goodnight Moon, a boom I’m familiar with but don’t know very well (I mean to rectify that soon - plus she sounds a fascinating woman, I have a biography on the way any day now!), and this seems a more minor work compared to that and her lovely Little Golden Books. Nothing much seems to happen beyond the old, old lady taking her seventeen cats and one little blue grey kitten out for a walk and then feeding them.

And then the wind blows. It’s not the wind itself that’s the problem - although Hayes manages one wonderful picture of terrified cats who look for the world that they’re going to be thrown skywards any moment (my wife used to worry our cat Cluedo would blow away when she was only a few months old). Instead the old, old lady gets a toothache and because she really just lives to look after her beloved cats she begins to worry.

Hayes beautifully shows the old, old lady is more anxious than anything else. He goes to great lengths to stress her role as a care giver for the cats, clearly worrying most about who will look after them rather than herself. A lesser artist would make her cross or irritable or even just in significant levels of pain. But Hayes shows her as just someone who worries because of her responsibilities.

The solution to her tooth pain is simple and lovely and, frankly, one of the most relatable things I’ve ever seen in a picture book. The little blue grey kitten (I particularly love how Brown keeps repeating certain phrases here, giving the book a sort of emotional foundation through repetition) simply snuggles up to old, old lady’s face and in lieu of a hot water bottle (she no longer has one) provides her with the warmth, comfort and relief she so desperately needs.

My cats do this, although mostly to my wife i have to admit. I’m forever waking up to find Spooky and Cluedo sprawled on her in the night, sometimes for their comfort and sometimes for their own. But Cluedo - heading towards fifteen now, and fast shrinking back to kitten size - is particularly the one who clearly sees adoration of her human mum as the reciprocal be all and end all. She snuggles up to her at all hours, warm and safe and secure. My wife nearly teared up at the image of the kitten doing the same, it’s so well observed.

The book tells us the old, old lady simply forgets she ever had a toothache, which I’m not sure is entirely accurate, but given the loveliness of that image of the kitten providing warmth I’m very much willing to go with it. Kittens and cats provide so much solace in our moments of worry and concern and it’s lovely to see Brown and, many years later, Hayes recognise that.

(Incidentally, if you have any access to the original version of this by Rosalie Slocum, I’d love to see it and especially how the kitten’s snuggling is illustrated. I can only find scraps online sadly!)

Anyway, that’s it from me for today. Another letter and another book soon!

Chris Browning,
Todmorden, West Yorkshire, April 2026

Of Photos, Cakes and Boxes

 Mr Finch used to be a librarian at the University of Swemmit, a not very big university but just large enough to get lost in and just large enough to have the sort of library you could get even more lost in, peculiarly bigger than the architects ever intended it to be. Regularly people wander in to find something to read, end up forgetting what level they're in and eventually having to camp out overnight somewhere around the theology section (there's a tent) until someone sends a search party to find you the next morning. 

In fact Mr Finch's current home came about because of one such search party. His landlady, the mysterious Mrs Ivers, was one such lost soul. She was lost in the library for two weeks, and was so traumatised by the incident that she spent most of the time in a large cardboard box. She has never come out of the box since, so Mr Finch has never in fact met her properly or indeed knows what kind of animal she is, but because he politely returned her in the box to her home in Trosset and finding out she needed a couple of lodgers, suggested himself and Aloysius. Life in Wegware was lovely, but as the main town on the island it could also be a bit noisy. Trosset is sleepier and Mr Finch and his best parrot friend have been very happy there for the last ten years. And they are happy to leave Mrs Ivers to shuffle around in her box, if it keeps her happy.

Mr Finch and Mr Mitton arrived at the house - an end terrace overlooking the sea and with a nice view of St Tessop's church beyond McAvoy Spinney - to the delicious odours of Aloysius' cooking. Aloysius had been a ship's parrot, taking over the catering on many trips out to Swemmit Slough over the years, but had always longed to cook on the mainland because "I really want to be able to make something that doesn't collapse every time the ship lurches". He now tinkers around the kitchen, exploring and innovating new recipes and doing a weekly radio show on Radio Swemmit where he shares his latest mad cookery ideas.

"Oh that's a nice smell," said the dog Mr Benny Minton, "what kind of cake is that?"

"A delicious one!" said the parrot, hopping into the hall way as the front door closed, "Hello Mr Minton! Nice to see you again! Are you here for my cakes?"

"Aloysius," said Mr Minton (the parrot had long forgotten his own surname), "I am always here for your cakes. What have you made today?"

"Coconut, potato and Mystery Pudding," said the parrot excitedly. Nobody knew what Aloysius' Mystery Pudding was, and most people believe it changed on a weekly basis, but everybody who smelled or tasted it declared their undying love for it.

"Lovely!" said Mr Finch, as he walked into the front room. Every room in the house was stuffed with Mr Finch's books. He had thousands of them, getting them from all over the island and also from his many friends across the world. He also used to take home any unloved books from the library before he retired, and even now the head librarian - the armadillo Mr Gossett - boxes up any interesting books and sends them to his old friend and assistant. "I shall let Mrs Ivers know we're having cake in the front room."

"Mrs Ivers! Cake!!" he shouted.

There was suddenly a loud bang, followed by a clatter, a sort of zuzz-zuzz-zuzz noise that went on for a few seconds, followed by another clatter, a distant bell ringing and then something very close to a CLUMPH noise. And in the doorway stood a large cardboard box, with eyeholes cut out somewhere in the middle. This was Mrs Ivers.

"OOOH! CAKE!" came a voice, a somewhat strange and clearly disguised voice - deep and echoey. Mrs Ivers always claimed to be very shy, especially after her two weeks lost in the library, but Mr Finch suspected there was a stranger mystery about who his landlady was. She did not have a family, she lived in the walls, cellar and attic, and sometimes there was a strange clanking noise in the middle of the night that sometimes sounded like a voice. "I LOVE CAKE! BUT WE MUST DO THE PHOTO FIRST!"

One of Mrs Ivers' most peculiar habits was taking photographs of any guests who came to visit. She would photograph it, disappear for a few hours, and come back with it beautifully framed and added to the wall of faces that went throughout the house.

"We can always do the cake first and then the photo?" said Mr Minton, hopefully sniffing the air.

"NO! PHOTO FIRST! THEN CAKE!" barked Mrs Iver. "ALL THREE OF YOU! AND THEN LETTER!!"

Mr Minton looked at Mr Finch, "Oh she knows about the letter too?"

"Oh yes, she enjoys hearing about Mr Browning's books - so let's do the photo, get the cake and then tuck into whatever my friend has to say", said Mr Finch.

And so here is the photo.

And, also, here is the letter...