posted on 09 Dec 2015

My Father is a Polar Bear by Michael Morpurgo

Morpurgo uses his  storytelling skills to draw the reader into his tale by mysteriously stating that his father was a polar bear, and that polar bears are very difficult to find. He manages to suggest a flavour of magical strangeness but then deftly turns it into a comfortable, nostalgic tale in which we are reassured that he was not deprived of a father as a child but lucky to have one who was there, Douglas, and one who wasn’t there ‘ the polar bear one’.

The first illustration shows him as a five year old with his elder brother Terry both sitting in bed with a torch to look at a magazine. This is how he remembers discovering that his father was an actor playing the part of a polar bear in a production of The Snow Queen. He provides us with some background information about this mysterious figure and as usual manages to include some important historical facts for his readers in a very accessible way.

He tells us in a matter of fact way that his parent’s marriage did not survive the separation caused by World War Two and they agreed to be divorced ‘quickly and quietly’ and his mother soon remarried. The lack of fuss about explaining all this is admirable because he wants to move the story forward so that we can be part of tracking down the polar bear. He has very dim memories of this father as he wasn’t talked about by the adults in the family. Because of this, he acquired a very special status ‘a sort of secret phantom father’ for the two young brothers. As part of their quest, they persuade their aunt to take them to the theatre where he is performing and are entranced and enthralled when he appears on the stage. Terry sneaks off to meet him after the show, his disappearance causing minor havoc involving the police being called. The details of the meeting between father and son backstage where he describes him as looking like “ a giant pixie in a bearskin” is shared with his brother and becomes the stuff of more secret storytelling between the two.

Fourteen years pass by with the polar bear father maintaining his mythic status between the two brothers. Then he makes another unexpected but equally extraordinary appearance into their lives. We are given a glimpse of the comfortable cosiness of a 1960’s family Christmas, the first time that the family had the luxury of a television and their father, Douglas was concerned that it might interfere with the traditional celebrations. By common consent they are rationed to one programme and so settle down to watch the Christmas Eve film Great Expectations. As Magwitch looms up from behind the gravestone in the opening scene- his mother exclaims: “That’s your father! It is. It’s him. It’s Peter”.  And so the secret is out at last and he has been transformed yet again – this time into a convict.     

Time passes again and the mysterious polar bear, pixie, convict father shifts into the background for many years, reputedly living in Canada. Then he pops up again playing Falstaff in a Chichester theatre and the two grown up brothers decide to meet him together, taking two grandsons and a daughter in law along for the great family reunion. The relationship is at last properly acknowledged and he becomes known as ‘Grandpa Bear’.

This author has a huge fund of experiences to draw upon for his very readable books. This one is based on the strange but true story from his own childhood. The charming colourful illustrations by Felicita Sala are rather retro in style and so exactly fit the time in which the first part of the story is set.

Karen Argent

9th December 2015