Book Detective

Before there was Winnie-the-Pooh, there was a real bear named Winnie.

In 1914, 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. Here is the remarkable true story of the bear who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh.

Togo by Robert J. Blake

Out of the Woods by Rebecca Bond

Winnie by Sally M. Walker

Two Bobbies by Kirby Larson

Wonder Horse by Emily Arnold McCully

Mrs. Harkness and the Panda by Alicia Potter

The Buffalo Are Back by Jean Craighead George

Twenty-One Elephants and Still Standing by April Jones Prince

The Incredible Life of Balto by Meghan McCarthy

Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson

Of Thee I Sing by Barack Obama

Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers

Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Sit-In by Andrea Davis Pinkney

Child of the Civil Rights Movement by Paula Young Shelton

Parrots Over Puerto Rico by Susan L. Roth

A Mama for Owen by Marion Dane Bauer

Hachiko by Pamela S. Turner

As Good as Anybody by Richard Michelson

Living Color by Steve Jenkins