Winnie's Great War by Lindsay Mattick and Josh Greenhut

Cole is ready for bed when his mother asks him if he wants to hear the story  of his stuffed bear. When he asks for something different, Cole's mother offers to tell her son the real story about his great-great-grandfather and his bear Winnie.

The story begins in the woods, where Bear is just emerging from her den inside a tree, for the first time. Mama bear watches as Bear climbs a tall tree, so high, she gets stuck and needs rescuing. But during this adventure, Bear meets two squirrels, Fancy and Tall whom she can understand and talk to. Mama warns Bear that only the trapper can his traps can hurt them. Sadly this is exactly what happens to Mama one day. With her front leg held fast in the trap and the trapper approaching, Mama warns Bear to hide up the tree and to be brave. Bear climbs the tree and witnesses the trapper shooting her Mama and hauling her away.

The next morning the little boy who was with the trapper returns to the tree with food. Each day he returns with food until one day Bear cannot resist the fish that lands at the base of the tree. The fish leads her to the freckled boy who gives her sticky delicious maple syrup. Bear is follows the boy home to an old wood and stone cabin where he lives with the trapper, his grandpa and grandma.

At the cabin, Bear meets Leo the dog and watches as the boy helps a white mare give birth to her foal. When the trapper sees Bear, he recognizes her as the orphan cub. Bear is put into a small wooden pen next to the chicken coop, but soon she finds a way out. This leads to plenty of trouble that includes eating all the flowers in the window box and getting into the cabin where she eats a pie and brings down a shelf of jars and bottles. Although the boy tries to keep her, his grandpa decides to take Bear into town

Bear is taken into White River to the Hudson's Bay Company but when the clerk wants to make her into a rug the trapper leaves. Eventually Bear is bought by a young soldier, Lieutenant Harry Colebourn from Winnipeg for twenty dollars. On August 24, 1914, Bear and Harry leave Port Arthur on the train. Harry introduces Bear as their mascot for the Veterinary Corps. Colonel Currie is not impressed however, threatening to "do away" with Bear should she be a problem. Harry decides to name the young bear Winnipeg or Winnie for short. And so begins Winnie's travels, across the country to Valcartier, and then on to England where Harry and his friends, Brodie, Edgett and Dixon prepare to go to war. But Winnie won't end up in France. Instead she spends the duration of the war in England, seeing Harry whenever he's on leave. But it is Winnie's time in England after the War is over that leads to the marvellous Winnie the Pooh stories.

Discussion

Winnie's Great War was written by Harry Colebourn's great-granddaughter, Lindsay Mattick in collaboration with writer Josh Greenhut. Using material from her family's archive that included Harry's diaries, photographs and other artifacts, as well as detailed research into World War II and also bears, Mattick has penned the story of her great-grandfather and the bear cub he named Winnipeg from her beginning as a bear cub to her purchase by Harry and then as they travel from Canada overseas to England during World War I.

Winnie and Harry

The story is told from the point of view of the bear cub's perspective beginning with when she was a cub in the forest with her mother to her capture, to when Colebourn purchases her and travels overseas, to her life in the zoo in London. Using the basic facts of Harry's short time with Winnie from his diaries, Mattick blends fact and fiction together to create an engaging story that is more detailed and will appeal to readers in the 8 to 12 age bracket. Some of the characters are real such as Harry Colebourn, Brodie, Edgett, Dixon and Currie. Others such as the many animals, Fancy and Tall, Sir Reginald, Victoria and Alberta and Black Knight (who are horses) are fictional, making the tale more appealing for the younger reader. When Cole complains that his mother is just making up the story of the animals such as Sergeant Bill, a goat, she assures him that some actually did exist; "There was a billy goat from Broadview, Saskatchewan, who came to England on the same convoy as as Winnie and trained in Salisbury Plain and fought with the Fighting Fifth in France...Later in the War, he butted three soldiers into a trench a split second before a shell exploded on the spot where they'd been standing. He could hear it coming, he saved their lives. Sergeant Bill  received the Victory Medal before returning  home to Canada."

Mattick's variety of animal characters are used throughout the story to promote the idea that listening to those who are different and tolerating one another leads to understanding and peace. In the novel, the author anthropomorphizes the animals in order to demonstrate how intolerance and misunderstanding can result in war. On the boat, Winnie discovers that the horses hate the rats who poison their food while the rats dislike the horses who stomp on them and kill them. Winnie finds herself caught in the middle because she listens and can understand both sides. Cole asks his mother if the horses and rats can understand what the other is saying. She tells him that they can't because they aren't taking the time to listen. Misunderstandings can then lead to war. "No. Because if you're not listening, it's impossible to hear.If you believe that somebody is so different from you that you can't possibly have anything in common, you'll never be able to hear them no matter what they say. That was the way with the rats and horses. And that's how it is in war." When both begin listening to the other's concerns they are able to broker a solution that works for both rats and horses.

Cole asks his mother if there will ever be a time without war, she tells him, "I don't know. As long as animals have roamed the earth, they've fought -- over food, over land, over everything. But maybe if we were better at understanding each other, there would be less fighting." 

Mattick's novel is filled with lovely pencil illustrations by Sophie Blackall. There is an extensive section title The Colebourn Family Archive complete with many photographs of Winnie and Harry as well as some other interesting information.

Winnie's Great War is a short storybook that captures the essence of Harry and Winnie's remarkable relationship and how Winnie came to be the inspiration for the Winnie the Pooh novels authored by  A.A. Milne. At the same time the author encourages young readers to be tolerant of those who are different or who hold different views and to work together in a way that fosters understanding and peace.

Image from Library and Archives Canada:
http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item?app=fondsandcol&op=img&id=e011067494-v8


Book Details:

Winnie's Great War by Lindsay Mattick and Josh Greenhut
Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.      2018
227 pp.