Little Red Bear and I have received another reader question we thought it may be good to respond to for everyone. Well, a question and a comment really, and good information to pass along.
Reader Question from S. F. on holiday at an undisclosed beach resort in the U. K. –– “Dear Little Red Bear — Holiday reading, sunshine, and fresh sea air – what could be better?Thanks for translating Red, got plenty of buzzards’ breath but all out of catfish whiskers and the hummingbirds are being most uncooperative.”
Answer— For the benefit of those who have not read “The Adventures of Little Red Bear” yet, or may have unwisely skipped over the “Introduction”, what S. F. is referring to is that to save readers the difficulty and hassles of needing to translate all the different spoken animal languages and dialects back and forth as they read, Little Red Bear and I worked tirelessly to translate everything for you. Bears speaking to birds and rabbits, turtles speaking to bears, humans speaking to bears and foxes, weasels yammering on, etc. The pig is a different matter, and you will need to read for yourself to see what that is all about.
Information on the translation process was explained in the Introduction, along with many other things, and S. K. is referring to a few of the translation ingredients in her comment. And it points to why we decided to go ahead and take care of the translations issue for readers ahead of time. We didn’t charge extra for it. Little Red Bear just felt it a nice to thing to do for folks.
In response to S. K. then — “Holiday reading, sunshine, and fresh sea air – what could be better?” We can’t think right off of any better thing than being on holiday at the beach reading Little Red Bear stories, so you have us stumped with that one. And yes, we have found the hummingbirds to be problematic and difficult to work with at times, as it seems the later it gets into summer the more of a sugar high they are on, causing some predictably spiky attitudes. We are impressed with your having gathered sufficient quantities of the buzzard’s breath though, as that is where the translation process breaks down for many folks, unwilling to approach a turkey buzzard that closely. Little Red Bear sends a big paw pat on the back for that one!
As for the other, we could mail some dried catfish whiskers over for you, but find that fresh whiskers work much better and produce a clearer translation in the end. And since we have it all translated for you ahead of time anyway, we won’t bother to send any dried whiskers over to save you the mailing expense.
So, sorry we were stumped by that question, but want to thank you for writing in to let us know all that translation time and effort is helping readers out after all.
So, a big thanks to S. F. for the comments! Remember folks, please keep those questions and letters coming. We’ll get to them as best we can here for you. Happy reading, and thanks as always for stopping by! And remember folks, the best sermons are lived, not preached. God bless, y’all. – Jim (and Red!)
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About an Uncommonly Special Bear and His Friends.
I’m one of life’s observers. Details are my thing, right from when I was young and experimenting with art and writing. I had a penchant for precision, clarity and aestheticbeauty – and a deep need to put what I saw into a creative context.
My love of art and detail began from a young age…’Storm’ at age eleven, hands, Dali, cliffs and self-portrait during teens, and drawing my sister and her horse, fairy and a steampunk bumblebee as an adult… © Lisa Shambrook 
James Milson - The Writing Pages 