Paddington, the duffle-coated, marmalade-loving bear from Darkest Peru, is joining the digital revolution after his creator Michael Bond was convinced of the virtues of ebooks.
The 85-year-old Bond, who published his first book, A Bear Called Paddington, in 1958, was initially unsure about allowing his classic creation to be digitised. "Paddington has been around for a good many years now so he's really an integral part of the family, and I suppose that makes me his virtual father. So like most fathers I want to make sure that, whatever happens to him, he's treated with great respect. When it was suggested that A Bear Called Paddington should be digitalised, I must admit to feeling a bit uneasy about the whole thing," said Bond. But like Ray Bradbury, who finally bowed to digital progress and published the first ever ebook of Fahrenheit 451 earlier this week, Bond was eventually convinced of the merits of digitisation, with a Paddington app just released and the entire range of Paddington books to be made available as ebooks next year.
"I needn't have worried," Bond said. "The original work remains unchanged, nothing has been taken away, but an exciting new dimension has been added. It works wonders and in fact is so exciting I want to dash out and tell everyone all about it."
The £3.99 Paddington app, which publisher HarperCollins Children's Books says remains "faithful to the charming reading experience that has made Paddington a national treasure", allows users to record their own video reading of the story, so a child can choose who they want the story to be read by. Children can also take pictures of themselves with Paddington, while RW Alley's classic illustrations of the bear have been animated.
"This is not just an electronic version of the book – it's a new way of telling, and sharing, a much-loved story," said Tom Conway, digital publishing manager.
Two new Paddington titles, the novel Paddington Races Ahead and the picture book Paddington Goes for Gold, are also due out next year, said HarperCollins. More than 25m copies of the Paddington books have sold around the world, it added.
