This book was given to me (along with Paddington at the Zoo) as a jokey Christmas present by my sister. I read them both recently while I was ill which was rather ideal. The book is only 24 pages long and there's a lot of illustrations; most pages have at least half the space given over to the picture. The illustrations are in colour and done by RW Alley - I'm used to the pen and ink ones by Peggy Fortnum and I think I rather prefer those. The new ones seem a bit bland and too cutesy for my liking, and the proportions are way off - Paddington comes up to the chest on various adults which makes him quite tall!

As for the actual story, I thought it was far too short and rushed. The focus seems to be on the illustrations rather than the text, compared to the original books where there's only a couple of illustrations per chapter. This book is set at Hampton Court Palace and there's a moment where a group of tourists suddenly mistakes Mr Gruber for a tour guide and it's not very clear why that happens.

The book was originally published in 1987 and this is a reprint from 2009. It's not too dated thankfully, the only noticeable moment is when a visitor says she needs to buy more film for her camera and the phrase 'picture postcard' - I think the latter would have been dated even in the 1980s! ( )