While the Paddington Bear stories were all written by a single author, Michael Bond, there have been a number of different illustrators over the years, among them Peggy Fortnum, Ivor Wood, Borie Svensson, John Lobban and Nick Ward. The Cooper Hewitt Design Library collects movable and pop-up books for the study of their illustrations and paper engineering as art.

I never went to bed without a story when I was small.” If you’re brought up with books being part of the furniture, with a story being read to you when you go to bed at night, it’s a very good start in life. And I think the next most precious thing you can give a child is an interest in books. In 2014 Bond reminisced about childhood: “I think the most precious thing you can give a child is your time. The dust-covered pop-up in the movie Paddington 2 is made up of beloved city landmarks: “And this is London.” The moment conveys the absorption that a child can have in books and their illustrations and construction. A sliding book, also known as a pull tab, or a dissolving image mechanism, has a Venetian-blind type of construction animated by a small flap that causes the image to transform into something different. Three-dimensional or movable books are animated works that are created by “paper engineering.” A pop-up has parts made from stiff card stock that move when a page is turned. Within the collections of the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Library in New York City are ten Paddington titles, all in the form of pop-up or sliding books. There were 15 Paddington titles in all, plus picture and gift books, a cook book and a guide to London. The film is based on the children’s books of the late author Michael Bond, who 60 years ago this month, published the first volume, A Bear Called Paddington, on October 13, 1958. After opening the covers to the movable parts within, the good-souled, marmalade-loving bear is transported into a dreamlike world of a London cityscape-all of it folding and popping up like the intricate paper constructions of a pop-up book. The volume is for sale in the Notting Hill antique store of the Hungarian refugee Mr. The plot of the much-loved 2017 film, Paddington 2, revolves around a one-of-a-kind, pop-up book.

Michael bond a bear called paddington