Lindsay Mattick

Independent Reading Level: Grades 1-3.
Caldecott Medal (2016)

This book is appropriate for Primary or Intermediate readers.
This book tells the story of the bear behind the character of Winnie the Pooh.
This book could be useful when demonstrating the deeper stories behind beloved characters or teaching about writing research reports.

This book is told through the lens of a mother to her son, as she tells him a bedtime story. The story is of his great-great grandfather in WWI befriending a bear named Winnie. This bear later becomes the friend of Christopher Robin and inspiration for Winnie the Pooh. I would use with lower elementary to introduce historical context after or before reading a Winnie the Pooh story.

Before discovering this book, I hadn't realized that Winnie-the-Pooh was based on a real bear that Harry Colebourn took to WWI with him. The art is also lovely.