Category: Books and writers

Your Review is Welcome in a Writer-Bear’s Neighbourhood

Each review is wanted,
Each review is good,
Your review is welcome
In a writer’s neighbourhood.

Mawson Bear’s Guardian Mark speaks: As you know, our Mawson is a Writer-Bear. One of his books is called Dreamy Days and Random Naps. It’s about slowing down, indulging in big dreams of a grand world, and resting on cushions. This is the perfect for all the tired daydream-believers who want to give themselves permission to relax for little while Could this be you?

I’m sure many frazzled grownups would enjoy escaping for a peaceful half hour into this cosy world – If only they knew about it. And this is the same for every writer: if only readers knew about their books!

Writers need your help. Yes, YOUR help: When you are quiet sort of writer (or a quiet writer-bear) it is not easy to be heard out there in the wide world. Only YOU, the all-powerful reader, can help. You can post your own review about a book on one of the book-retailer websites.

How to do it: Go to your chosen book retailer. Here are some retailers: Amazon and Good Reads, Barnes and Noble (USA), and Booktopia (Australia). (There are more listed below.)
Search for the book title, or author name, or ISBN number.
After you find the book, scroll down to the field headed ‘Leave A Review’, or ‘Write Your Own Review’.
If you haven’t before used that book retailer you need to register to do so. This does take a couple of minutes of bother, I know, but then comes the fun.

Smiting at the Star Ratings. With all the power of your mighty keyboard, bash at the ratings. If you love the book, keep on smiting. Smite Thrice!!! Smite Fourfold!!!! And, yea even unto Five times!!!!!  (Err, smiting only once is right out!)

Our Scotland the Brave charges at the ratings and smites for all he is worth.

Adding Words. Just smiting will do but adding words is even better. Now don’t be alarmed by the word ‘review’. An essay is not required, rather just a few words about what you think of the book and what you liked. For instance, ” I loved the pictures of these happy, sleepy bears and can’t wait for more”. (Umm, that sort of thing would really help a certain writer-bear.)

You can post your review on other sites too: Having tasted your awesome power, why stop there? You can copy and paste your review to any other on-line retailer. Do as many as you like, depending on how mighty doth waxeth your smiting arm that day.

Other ways to help writers that cost nothing:
Look at the reviews left by other readers and click the “helpful” or “like’ buttons.
Share the links about that book all over the place.
You can look at the writer’s other titles too and if you are not able to buy one just now, add to a ‘Wish List.’ On GoodReads add it to “Want to read’ list.
These small actions tell the websites’ algorithms that people are taking notice of the book. It all adds up. And up. And UP. And it means lots of people will fall in love with our Dreamy Days and Random Naps (and the other books you review, of course) just like you did. All writers will be grateful for these things which you can do in a jiffy.

Can you help with Mawson’s Dreamy Days and Random Naps?

Please let me know if you would like to do a review for Dreamy Days and Random Naps. I can send you a PDF version. Short remarks are fine. It is, after all, a little book. Or just bash away at those star ratings.

Where to find Dreamy Days and Random Naps

FIND DREAMY DAYS AND RANDOM NAPS at Odyssey Books. Or roll off your cushions and flop over to Bookshop Org (supporting local bookshops),  Amazon everywhere,  Booktopia, Walmart, AbeBooks, at Google Books, at Booklubben , Ad Libris, Desert Cart , Fa Saxo (Denmark),   Linnaeus Boekhandel,  Loot (South Africa),  Saxo , McNally Jackson (New York), at Loot (South Africa), Mighty Ape (New Zealand),

Your host, Mark, is Mawson Bear’s Guardian, photographer, editor, blundering typist, chocolates fetcher and cushions re-arranger. Baffled Bear Books ABN: 4787910119.

The Adventurous Princess and other Feminist Fairy Tales, by Erin-Claire Barrow

‘What if Beauty stood up to the Beast, the Princess never tried to sleep on the pea .. and the Swan Maiden took revenge on the hunter who kidnapped her?‘ (From the Back Cover.)

The nine tales retold here include ‘Beauty and The Beast’, ‘The Frog Prince’ and ‘The ‘Swan Maiden’, but now you see them with new eyes. Our Teddettes Jane Austen And Other Books Too Club certainly did.

Our Professor Caddy got her paws on this beautifully illustrated retelling of fairy tales. On the cover, a young woman, head held high and wearing sturdy boots, looks ready to protect herself (spear) and to find her own way about (map). The back cover suggests she is less concerned about the dragon than the dragon might be about her. There is not a tiara or movement-restricting dress in sight. ‘I must bring this to our Tedettes Jane Austen Bookclub’, said Caddy. ‘These princesses look so different and bold’.

Tedette Samantha loved the first tale, ‘The Princess and The Pea’. This is the exactly kind of princess Sam wants to be! She dashed off to put on her ‘exploring bag’, inspired to go adventuring herself right away.

Wise old Hilda-Bear read ‘Cinderella.’ ‘Marvellous’, muttered Hilda, ‘ Marvellous. Why should we bears of ‘a certain age’ miss out when it comes to fairy tales. Marvellous, just marvellous’.

Tedette Lizbeth is always conscious of her lovely fur. She went straight to the tale of ‘Snow White’ which features the magic talking mirror. Well, it was not quite how she remembered it. “Mirror, mirror on the wall’, asks the Queen, ‘who is the fairest of them all?’ Lizbeth was delighted at how this story turns out. She will never look at mirrors or her fur the same way again.



I think we will all want to see more tales in this light! Oh, and there are ‘morals’ in these tales for princes too, for instance, that wearing glasses and loving books is perfectly fine, and that waiting about on a lily pad in a murky pond hoping a princess will come to you is perhaps not the best way to go forth in life.

‘The charm, whimsy and magic of traditional fairytales remain, but the diverse characters challenge stereotypes about who they should be or how the y should act, stand up for themselves, and shape their own futures. ‘(From Back Cover).

The Adventurous Princess is both written and illustrated by Erin-Claire Barrow. Her full-page colour drawings are respectful of the original tales but visually turn us to appreciate them differently. Erin hopes such stories ‘inspire young people, and young women in particular, to see themselves as the strong, clever and adventurous heroes of their own stories.’ (Foreword.) You can see more of Erin’s work at her website. Take a look, for instance, at her collection called ‘Dangerous creatures from Celtic folklore.’

The Adventurous Princess and Other Feminist Fairy Tales is published by Publisher Obscura, an imprint of Odyssey Books . You can also find it on Amazon where it is alsocurrently FREE on Kindle unlimited, although with illustrations of this quality you will want to hold the real thing in your hands.

Mark, your host here at Baffled Bear Books, is also guardian and blundering typist for Mawson, one of this bright world’s few published bears. Mawson is the writer-bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In and She Ran Away From Love. 

Seven Ghostly Spins – A brush with the supernatural, by Patricia Bossano

‘When isolated from the bustle of civilisation, the mind slips unfettered.’

Seven Ghostly Spins contains six paranormal tales that are short enough to read during a commuter ride to work. (But will you then feel a bit too disturbed to carry on as usual that day?) One tale, ‘Abiku’, is a creepy novella perhaps best read when safely at home with the lights turned on.

‘Amelia’s mouth opened and an infinite, desolate scream escaped.’

I am not a frequent reader of ghost or horror tales. Although the author offers tantalising notes on the inspirations for this collection, for instance, that one of the stories is based on “a real walk in the moonlight”, I still began by thinking, “All right then, so let’s just see if you can get to me.”

Fellow Baffled Ones, these stories got to me.

We get crumbling houses and overgrown paths in abandoned gardens, dark basements, cemeteries, fortune tellers, and birds ominously pecking at the window. Yet, as the book’s subtitle suggests, the stories are more about ‘brushes’ with the supernatural than with horror. We are offered different levels of the mind and of sight, portals that open unexpectedly, places that seemingly tug at the mind, objects that influence actions.

‘I close my eyes and I float for a while, not in my room but in a dream. I think I should go home but I don’t know how. I’m not worried though ‘.

‘Alison’ is the sweetest ghost story I’ve encountered although very sad.  It’s based on the legend of a girl who died in a real theatre in San Francisco.

‘By The Iron Gate‘ is as much about the pathos of a woman’s tightly restricted life as about the supernatural. ‘I would grab the iron bars and stare into the moonlit garden, like a prisoner longing to return to her cell.‘ In ‘She Caught A Ride’, a hazing goes wrong, and in ‘Carolina  Blue’ a chiffon dress leads to a fateful encounter of the heart. The dully named story called ‘205 1/2, 25th Street’ is anything but as a man’s viewing of a real estate purchase turns into a chilling time slip through to the actions of his forebears.

I enjoyed these stories both for the brushes with supernatural elements and also for the well written glimpses of the characters’ lives wherein time and again a carefully added word or phrase by the author turns the ordinary into something else. Why not let your own mind slip unfettered for a while. I think you may close the book, as I did, feeling thoughtful about particular ‘odd’ events in your own lives.

Seven Ghostly Spins, by Patricia Bossano, with featured author Kelsey E Gerard, is published by Water Bearer Press. Patricia Bossano has also written Faery Sight, Nahia,  and Cradle Gift.

Where to unshroud it: From Amazon in Kindle and soft cover, Barnes and Noble in Kobo and soft cover,  also Waterstones . Hardcover editions are also available. Or, ask your friendly local bookstore to order it in for you, and for your friends who appreciate a frission of the supernatural.

Patricia also wrote Love and Homegrown Magic, which I loved. See my review here.

You are at Baffled Bear Books, brought to you by Mark, who is Guardian and blundering typist for Mawson Bear, one of this bright world’s few published bears. Mawson is the writer bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In and of She Ran Away From Love and of Dreamy Days and Random Naps.

The Dark Poet, by Kathryn Gossow

The book’s dedication: For all the girls who loved a boy they shouldn’t have, and all the broken boys that heal’.

A homeless man gets breakfast. A woman plucks limes in her garden. A student and his girlfriend run into an old school acquaintance. Ordinary days and lives. But these eight interlinked stories soon slide us toward brooding hearts, deceit, addiction, and the shadows of domestic violence. These vulnerable people, hungry for connection, veer toward Paul, the Dark Poet.

‘He is a dark planet and around him circles floundering stars .. People caught in his orbit, lovers as debris caught in his gravitational pull’. P.17.

Paul is that dangerous creature, the charismatic man. The sort of man who can break a woman ‘into a million pieces if he smiled with just the wrong smile followed by just the right sneer’. P. 38.

Kathryn Gossow’s skill is to create this character, who we soon grasp is Bad News, and who yet grimly fascinates. As a reader I got caught in his orbit too.

I particularly admire good short stories, and this collection, moreover, left me thinking about people I have known. I think that it will have that effect on most readers. What will you think about?

For instance, who, really, are the people around us? Could the woman next door be a seer? Could that homeless man pluck a story from our hearts? Will that luminous elven girl one day become a guilt wracked women in the aisles?

The Dark Poet is published by Odyssey Books and available at Amazon here.

Kathryn Gossow is the author of Cassandra, whose central character, a seer, features in one of the stories in The Dark Poet. Cassandra and more of Kathryn Gossow’s titles can be found at Odyssey Books.

Mark is guardian and blundering typist for Mawson, one of this bright world’s few published bears.

Cassandra, by Kathryn Gossow: Shortlisted for Best Fantasy Novel 2017 in Aurealis Awards

Shortlisted for the Best Fantasy Novel 2017 in the Australian Aurealis Awards.

She dreams of plane crashes, earthquakes, tsunamis, bloody coups. She dreams of the stallion sweeping down the hill … . P. 197

Foreboding. Everything in the early chapters of Cassandra author Kathryn Gossow instills a sense of ‘foreboding’. Possibilities thicken of dark changes to come. Would they concern Paulo, or Athena, or a secret in this family? Or would they thunder down on Cassie herself like the ominous horse in her nightmares?

Cassandra: A princess of Troy and priestess of Apollo. She was cursed to utter true prophecies but to never be believed. (Wiki)

What if you could foresee people’s futures, for instance, that one kid on the school bus will die of bowel cancer, another will briefly shine on the stage but never become famous? A wonderful ability, yes? But what if you fill with dread and cannot make out why. Then Something happens. If you had warned people, and if they had believed you, could you have diverted that accident or mistake from happening? In the old legend, of course, Cassie’s namesake Cassandra felt cursed.

The Snake: Some versions of the legend have Cassandra falling asleep in a temple, where the snakes licked her ears so that she could hear the future. (Wiki.)

Cassie seems like an ordinary girl who gets bitten by a snake on a farm in Queensland. Her little brother predicts a drought, she grows to be a grumpy teenager troubled by visions, she scowls at her mother in the ordinary teenage way, she worries about her great-aunt and her Poppy .. Wait a minute. Bitten by a snake? Visions? Her brother foretells a drought? Wasn’t there a legend …?

The Brother: Some versions of the legend give Cassandra a brother, Helenus. Like her, he was always correct in his predictions. Unlike her, he was believed. (Wiki.)

She tries to make one true friend, Athena, who introduces her to the Tarot. (‘Her thoughts swirl with colour and the patterns and the meanings of the cards’. P. 77). She clumsily attempts to fit in with the cool kids, she experiments with alcohol and dope, her visions worsen, she is keen on a boy named Paulo .. Wait, wait. Athena? ‘Paulo’ .. or ‘Apollo’? Didn’t Apollo’s priestesses take hallucinogens to enhance their visions?

Apollo: Many versions of the myth relate that Cassandra incurred the god Apollo’s wrath by refusing him sex, after promising herself to him in exchange for the power of prophecy. (Wiki.)

Cassandra can be read is a ‘coming of age’ novel in that it concerns teenage insecurities and self-doubts, the cruel cut and thrust of cliques and friendships, and the tensions within families. But I think you will also soon be reading it, as I did, mindful of the big questions about fate and destiny, and mulling over the extent to which each of one’s decisions cuts away previous possibilities and opens up new ones.

Kathryn Gossow is also the author of The Dark Poet. An older Cassie, the central character of Cassandra features in the stories in The Dark Poet.

(The images of the book in this post are courtesy of Odyssey Books and the author.)

Mark, your reviewer here at Baffled Bear Books, is guardian and blundering typist for Mawson, one of this bright world’s few published bears.

PLEASE FOLLOW US At Baffled Bear Books .
Simply plonk your paw on the FOLLOW buttons on this very page.
You can also follow on Amazon and on GoodReads. We are also on Instagram, and Tiktok, and Anchor/ Spotify and Mastodon (link is @mawsonbear@mastodon.au. )

Starchild: The Age of Akra, by Vacen Taylor. First book in the saga

Starchild: The Age of Akra (Starchild, #1)
by Vacen Taylor

Soon after we start following Mai on her quest to the Valley of a Thousand Thoughts, we come upon a terrifying sandgroper, a mountain lair and a spider-flax – not just any spider-flax, mind you, but one that must be milked by perhaps the most annoying brother who ever had to accompany a girl on a pilgrimage. Although, it was hardly Long’s fault that his little sister got selected by the Elders for this journey. And his reluctance to approach the spider-flax seemed an entirely reasonable response to me. (What is a spider-flax? The book’s glossary of this world’s creatures, human and otherwise, nearly all of them dangerous, will tell you.)

What brother wouldn’t be suspicious of this Akra character, the strange boy who Mai and Long stumble across? For how long will Mai and Long have to rely on Akra, whose  uncontrolled powers throw them into one predicament after another? An adventure full of strangeness and perils- and this is just the beginning!

For more on the series see Vacen Taylors website, The StarchildSeries.com.

Where to find it: The whole Age of Akra series is available at Amazon, and Bookshop Org .

You are at Baffled Bear Books, brought to you by Mark, who is Guardian and blundering typist for Mawson Bear, one of this bright world’s few published bears. Mawson is the writer bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In and of She Ran Away From Love and of Dreamy Days and Random Naps.

Songlines, The Sentinels of Eden Book 1, by Carolyn Denman

I got four angry strides away before Harry changed the course of my life with six easy words. “Can you hear the river crying?” Lainie, Ch. 8

From Back Cover Description: ‘In the heart of the Wimmera region of Victoria, an ancient gateway to Eden is kept hidden and safe by a creature so powerful that even the moon would obey her commands – at least it would if she had any idea that she wasn’t just a normal girl about to finish high school.

‘Your mother’s grave is a lie.’ Harry to Lainie.

Synopsis:  Lainie’s days are filled with study, repairing fences,  ‘pulling stubborn lambs out of angry ewes’, and contemplating a future beyond this one-grain-silo town.

When the two important adults in her life, Aunt Lily and Harry, try to tell her that the mother she never knew is actually alive in some ‘Eden’, she reacts with anger. Though not clued up on the Book of Genesis, Lainie is sure the original Garden was not in the Great Southern Land (Australia). Besides, her mother lies buried. Harry, though, disappears. This is the catalyst for Lainie to seek out her roots.

This unusual adventure, aimed at Young Adults, is so thoughtful it deserves a wide readership. It mixes a coming-of-age tale and romance with ancient memories, religious motifs and mythologies.

The slow burn narrative begins in a nowheresville ‘where the creeks are named after dead animals’. Carolyn Denman  builds the details of school life, farm work and hikes through the fire-prone bush until the fantastical elements seem to arise quite plausibly from this backdrop .

I see it as an engrossing story of protecting the one Eden we all have now, our Earth. Lainie and her friends, Bane, Noah and Tessa, represent our only hope –  young people. Earth’s enemies are symbolised by the mining giant Kolsom. But there is more going on than the struggle between these Sentinels of a special place and Kolsom’s devious agents. Something seems to be going badly wrong with the nature of Eden itself.

Don’t be fooled by the early steady pace; the acceleration toward the utterly unforeseeable events took me by surprise. You are bound to want to know what on earth – and Eden – is going to happen next. Fortunately, the sequels are now available too.

I smiled at him, winked, then stepped across the boundary into Paradise.

Note on song lines: To Indigenous Australians, a songline, or dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land or sky which mark the route followed by creator-beings. These made the earth and everything in it. This early time is called the Dreamtime or the Dreaming. Carolyn Denman  says in the foreword, ‘My desire is that this tale reflects the co-existance and interconnectedness of belief systems.’

A word on the dialogue: Some of the lively terms sprinkling the novel might be new and fun to readers beyond Australia: you will hear of colours, for instance, ‘as bright as a tradies wardrobe’, and of dorks, drongos, fairy bread, even a mention of the legendary drop bears*.

Songlines: The Sentinels of Eden is now a complete series. You can read more about them at Carolyn Denman’s website.

Where to find them: through Bookshop Org and Amazon.

*What’s a drop bear? Not telling.

You are at Baffled Bear Books. Here writes Mark, guardian of Mawson Bear.
Mawson is a Ponderer of Baffling Things and one of this bright world’s few published bears.  He is the writer bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In. Mawson has many qualitites but he is not a drop bear.

 

Chronicles of The Pale by Clare Rhoden: Survival in a post-cataclysm world

‘How does anything live out there?’ Tad murmured.

Imagine a landscape more forbidding than Central Australia, the Sahara, the Atacana desert. A landscape still shifting with the after shocks of a cataclysmic event that, 197 years before The Pale begins, has destroyed most species. Clare Rhoden quickly establishes this ghastly world in our minds. At the same time she moves the narrative along with fascinating characters to care about.

 

What happens: Serviceman Tad patrols ‘the Pale’, the last place left that bears any resemblance to a city. Within the walls exist – you can hardly say ‘live’ – a hierarchical society of citizens who, like Tad, are partly liveware (tissue) and partly hardware. The Pale has wholly adopted technology and rationality as its survival mechanism. Subservience by the citizens to the poli-cosmos is the order of the day. (I think it no accident that the author’s use of ‘policosmos’ without a hyphen somehow gives it an overtone of ‘police state’.) Even so, there are unsettling signs in at least two Servicemen, Tad and his protégé Hector, of the Pre-catalcym human trait deemed most dangerous: empathy. The story of how this ‘weakness’ affects the Pale could have made a good novel in itself, I think, but Clare Rhoden interweaves it with so much more.

Outside the Pale, somehow life clings on. Here subsist the humans (fully liveware) of the Settlement. In their zeal to live up to Pre-cataclysmic ideals they have turned to biology. Strict breeding protocols result in a caste system. Beyond the Settlement roam Tribes. Some tribespeople have close bonds with the packs of Canini, wolf-like creatures. I defy any reader to not be fascinated by the Canini. Their codes and imperatives also serve as a contrast with the humans. All living things fear the Ferals, hybrids of biology and machine, a nightmare offspring of the former technological world. These scour the plains hunting biofuel i.e. flesh.

My thoughts: I particularly liked the depiction of how the mentality, society and even biology of humans could evolve to accomodate the need to survive and also to try to eliminate the weaknesses and disasters of Pre-Cataclysm humanity. In some dystopian stories all we really see, I think, is the last angry male humans mindlessly fighting each other to the last club and bullet. Here, to my relief, and I’m sure yours too, we have leaders, mostly female, relying on mutual respect, discussion, and the cross seeding of ideas between groups. This intelligent and thought provoking series looks at how the best attributes of we humans, empathy, hope, kindness, can have the power to lift us above struggle and misery.

Clare Rhoden’s website gives us more information about the Chronicles of the Pale ( The Pale, Broad Plain Darkening and The Ruined Land ) and  her other work.

Where to find The Chronicles of the Pale : From publisher Odyssey Books ,
From Amazon in Kindle and softcover.
Or, ask your friendly local bookstore to order the series in for you, My tip: order them all at once because you’re going to want to keep on reading.

Clare Rhoden also wrote The Stars in the Night and How to Survive Your Magical Family. Click on those links for my reviews.

You are at Baffled Bear Books, brought to you by Mark, who is Guardian and blundering typist for Mawson Bear, one of this bright world’s few published bears. Mawson is the writer bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In and of She Ran Away From Love and of Dreamy Days and Random Naps.

Tell me a story, Babushka received a great Kirkus Review!

“Timely, with relevance to today’s difficult Ukrainian struggle as history is repeated.” — Kirkus Reviews Full review here. [PRE-ORDER] Buy it in pre-order here. [BOOK TOUR] Join us here if you can post a review anywhere. You’ll receive an ebook and a media kit! [WORLDWIDE GIVEAWAY] Find the clickable KittyBerry hidden in the cover here […] that is, click on the link just below.🙂

Tell me a story, Babushka received a great Kirkus Review!

The direction Baba’s story takes surprises herself as well as her granddaughter. This folk tale ‘about memories and families’ begins with a lovely cottage in the Ukraine and a little girl ‘poor of money but rich of soul.’ But all too soon the Monsters come. And everything changes forever. 

Mawson Bear reads about what happens to a little girl in the story that Babushka tells. The cover is from an older edition

What will happen to our princess and all the other children in this frightening world. After sad events, the little girl finds a matryoshka doll, and inside the doll a message of hope. Will the children be able to escape to safety? Listen closely, as Babushka unfolds her story.

Mawson’s Guardian says: This story is set during ‘The Holodomor’ in the Ukraine in the 1930s. I had no idea about the Holodomor. Here I am learning about it from a kids book. And its well worth grownups reading it too.
In 1932 in the time of Stalin, Soviet soldiers stripped the Ukraine of so much grain that millions died of famine. They transported thousands of people to Siberia. It is a hard story of awful history, here shown in a deftly written children’s picture book.

With this story of drama and hope, Carola Schmidt has, I think, created a wonderful little book that confronts a hard part of history that will intrigue grownups as well as children.

Boumund Bear and Mawson read three of Carola Schmidt’s books, Tell Me A Story Babushka, Babushka is Homesick and Chubby’s Tale.

About the Author: Carola Schmidt, the author of the Babushka Tales series, is a Pediatric Oncology Pharmacist. She has written scientific books on paediatric oncology and also, for children and their families, Chubby’s Tale . Mawson and friends proudly read and reviewed Chubby’s brave story here. You can find Chubby on Twitter and on Facebook.

Carola’s Amazon Author Page is here where you can find these books and her other titles listed.

You can also read here about: Babushka is Homesick.

PLEASE FOLLOW US At Baffled Bear Books .
Simply plonk your paw on the FOLLOW buttons on this very page.
You can also follow on Amazon and on GoodReads. We are also on Instagram, and Tiktok, and Anchor/ Spotify and Mastodon (link is @mawsonbear@mastodon.au. )

Scotland The Brave on Lake Windermere

Scotty Bear is on a cruise boat on Lake Windermere under an overcast sky

Welcome to the adventures of Scotland The Brave in the UK of Great Britain. With his Guardians, Scotty explored London, Stonehenge and Bath, Exeter and Plymouth, Glastonbury, Cardiff and Ludlow, and Chester, and Liverpool. (You can catch up with the story by clicking those links.)

Next, they mounted their trusty Tour Bus and traveled due north to the Lake District in Cumbria . This is a land of great rugged hills with marvelous names like Brow Haw, Skidded, and Dow Crag.

Location of Windermere

CUMBRIA.  They were passing through a land with much history. According to the Romans, the Carvetii tribe were here long ago. The Romans came and conquered them, as Romans tended to do. When the Romans finally left, around 400 CE, a little Brittonic kingdom grew up around here called Rheged.

About 300 years later, Rheged was swallowed up by its neighbour, the Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Later came the Vikings to settle and trade. And then of course came the Normans. For a classic children’s story about those times, take a look at The Shield Ring. by Rosemary Sutcliff.

Guardian Mark is forever astonished at how much history the various peoples of Britain have managed to squash into such little bits of land. And the sheep graze on.

LAKE WINDERMERE. These days, thousands of tourists like Scotty and his Guardians pour in to the Lake District. This is another kind of invasion, but a much nicer one. Tourists come there to hike the great hills and to go boating on the big lakes of Windermere and Coniston Waters. Beatrix Potter lived in the Lake District and Wordsworth fell in love with it.

Scotty cruises Lake Windermere in the Lake District of England

Windermere is 11 miles long and up to a mile wide. (The English have yet to invent Kilometers). We arrived on The Lakeside and Haverthwaite Steam Train which runs from Haverthwaite to the southern end of Lake Windermere. From the piers at Lakeside Station we set out to cruise on this lake renowned in poems and novels.

Lake Windermere in the Lake District of England

Scotty loved the cruise. Between showers of rain he popped out on to the deck and took in the hills and sights all around. He wanted to write a Romantic Poem about it tradition of the Romantics inspired by the Lake District. Perhaps he could have sketched the scenery too. However, his paws struggle with quills.

Lots of people like to sail on the lake. There were sailing vessels moored everywhere and a lot of boat houses and little jetties.

There are fine houses and holidaying places around much of the shore, and a lot of woods.

Eventually they arrived at a town called Bowness. They wandered about the fore-shore and admired the holiday attractions and parks and gardens.

Birds mob tourists at Bowness
Birds at Bowness

If you are braver even than Scotland the Brave, you might risk going down on to the little beaches where you can get mobbed by swans and ducks. In their determination to get a bit of food, the smaller birds will even land on you. The rain drifted away and Scotty posed for another ‘Scottie’ or selfie or two.

Scotty at Bowness and Windermere

Guardian Mark tried rather hopelessly to identify the hills and peaks that are visible from the lake. Scale Head, perhaps? Claire Height maybe. And perhaps Castlewood Hill and Black Braw and Great Green How were somewhere in the distance. What splendid names, anyway.

We boarded the tour bus and travelled north through beautiful countryside. We were now making our dash for Gretna Green just as in all the finest Regency Period romances.

In the next episode, Scotty crosses an invisible border to arrive in Scotland at last. Don’t miss that one! (Click on the FOLLOW buttons so as to not miss anything.)

BOOKS with Scotland in them (our Scotty, that is)

Scotty is the star of a very special book called When A Brave Bear Fights Cancer: A Get Well Soon Gift by Carola Schmidt. In the book, Scotty a little bear who gets a bad sickness called cancer. He’s worried and often scared because cancer is scary.  But the doctors and nurses and other patients help him. The book is to help kids feel much more brave when they are getting treatment. It’s available in paperback and Kindle. Look for the brave little bear wearing trews on the cover.

You can also see Scotty in all the books by Mawson. One is called It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In (in that one he delivers the post) and another is She Ran Away From Love (he delivers the post again.) In Dreamy Days and Random Naps you can see him being a king and also a superb guitarist. Don’t miss that one! This is what the books look like:

Mawson’s Guardian says: You can find Mawson’s books on this Link here, and on his Writer-Bear Page on Amazon.

You are at Baffled Bear Books, brought to you by Mark, who is Guardian and blundering typist for Mawson Bear, one of this bright world’s few published bears. Mawson is the writer bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In and of She Ran Away From Love and of Dreamy Days and Random Naps.