Olga da Polga

Unlike Bond's more famous character, Paddington Bear, Olga is a teller of tall tales in the style of Baron Munchausen.

The typical plot of each story is that something fairly ordinary happens to Olga, and she gives her animal friends a wildly exaggerated version of events, subsequently revealed to be untrue by what the humans say.

Bond's books were memorably illustrated by Danish artist Hans Helweg, who was also well known for his "pulp fiction" covers for Pan paperbacks.

[1] His illustrations are still strongly associated with Olga, although later editions have used different imagery including artwork by Catherine Rayner for Usborne.

[3] In 2022, the BBC commissioned 13 episodes of a live-action TV series of Olga da Polga for CBeebies, featuring Julie Wilson Nimmo and Greg Hemphill.