The Berenstain Bears’ New Baby

Stan and Jan Berenstain's The Berenstain Bears' New Baby is a gentle picture book for 5 year olds about a little cub who wakes up one morning too big for his bed.

What happens

Small Bear lives with Mama and Papa in a tree down a sunny dirt road. Papa hollowed it out himself. Life is honey from the old bee tree and vegetables from the garden.

Then one morning his knees hurt and his legs ache. Papa takes one look and says Small Bear has outgrown his little bed. So off they go into the woods, axe freshly sharpened, to make a bigger one. (He's Small Bear in this one, by the way, rather than Brother Bear.)

All the way there he keeps asking the same thing. What will happen to his little bed? Nobody quite answers. Papa is too busy chopping. Mama just smiles and pats her tummy, which has lately got very big and round.

Your reader will probably spot what's going on long before Small Bear does! All he's noticed is that her lap has got harder to sit on. That little gap between what your child knows and what the cub knows is where the fun is.

When the new bed is made and carried home, his old one has vanished. And there it is in the next room, with a tiny baby sister tucked up inside it. She's small but very lively, and she says hello by popping her big brother on the nose.

Who could resist a baby with a pretty good punch?

It's a very reassuring read if there's a new sibling on the way at home. Nobody is jealous or left out. The worry in the story is small and very real (what's happening to MY things?) and it gets a kind answer. Small Bear goes to sleep proud to be a big brother.

The words are simple and the question comes round again and again, so a new reader can join in each time. It's short enough for one bedtime too.

What to read next

For more of this family, the Berenstain Bears Moving Day goes back to when they lived in a drippy cave halfway up a mountain. It follows them down into the valley to the tree house, where the new neighbours turn up with carrot stew and honeycombs to say welcome.