PADDINGTON BEAR GOES TO THE HOSPITAL

Books on first trips to the hospital can be such timorous affairs, so full of forced cheer. But Paddington is just what the doctor ordered, with his high degree of mellowness and bien-être—despite his separated shoulder. Paddington is found out on the front lawn, with some pain in his arm and without any memory of what happened. An ambulance whisks him to the hospital, and he is rolled into the X-ray room on a gurney: “Paddington had never traveled anywhere on a bed before, and he thought it was very good value.” Once the diagnosis is in, he settles in for the night. Paddington is such a dreamy, literal character, when the doctors tell him that they will be keeping him overnight for observation, he says, “I don’t think I want anyone observing me asleep. I might fall out of bed.” All goes well, and of course Paddington eats everything in sight, including his medicine, which pleases his nurses no end. By the time his stay is over, the hospital is demystified (it was never really mystified for Paddington), as is the enigma of his memory loss. It turns out a boomerang he had been playing with had clunked him on the back of the head. Alley’s pen-and-ink drawings give Paddington the right measure of rumpled hominess for a bear who pretty much defines sweet-natured, one who has never allowed his supercommercialization to rob him of his cool. He’d be the perfect hospital-room companion. (Picture book. 3-8)