THE FINAL SMACKDOWN

Mrs. Holden's Grade 4 class

Finding Winnie; The True Story Of The World's Most Famous Bear by Lindsay Mattick
VS.

Grumpy Pants by Claire Messer

Summary:

Finding Winnie; The True Story Of The World's Most Famous Bear by Lindsay Mattick

This is a picture book based on the true story of Winnie the bear and how she was rescued by a soldier and later came to live at the London Zoo. It was while she was living at the zoo that she met Christopher Robin and they became true friends. Christopher Robin's Dad was A.A. Milne and he used them as the inspiration for his famous books about Winnie the Pooh. 

Summary:
Grumpy Pants by Claire Messer

This is a picture book about a penguin who is grumpy. He doesn't know why he's grumpy and he doesn't care. Throughout the story, he tries to shed his grumpiness but in the end we discover the reason for his grumpiness. 

Winner: 18/23 here today voted for Finding Winnie. We think this is a beautiful book and we loved learning about this story. The illustrations really help to tell the story and the illustrator did a great job of showing true events. We really enjoyed the family album that was at the back of the book which showed pictures of Harry (the soldier), Winnie, and Christopher Robin. We think this is a very heartwarming story about true friendship and about putting others before yourself. It was very cool to learn near the end of the book that the author is actually the great-granddaughter of Captain Harry Colebourn, the soldier who bought Winnie. We still are wondering how Winnie ended up with the name Winnie the Pooh in the popular books by A.A. Milne. This book also inspired lots of other I wonder questions such as, "Did Winnie ever end up having any cubs?", "I wonder if Harry went to visit Winnie often after the war.", "I wonder how old Winnie was when she died?", "I wonder if Christopher Robin visited Winnie until she passed away?", "Did Winnie live at the London Zoo for the rest of her life?"

We would definitely recommend this book to others and we give it a rating of 10/10!