Have a child who loves bears?
This list of nonfiction and fiction bear books for kids is filled with fun titles that cover everything from learning about bears to discussing important early life skills such as the importance of bathing and how to not be a sore looser!
This list is perfect to fill your early reader bookshelf at home or in the classroom.
Bear Books for Kids
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Pre-reading concepts of rhyme, rhythm, and repetition are super important for early readers, and this fun Eric Carle book is perfect for teaching reading using those concepts.
A contemporary fable about a bear who has an appetite for hugging everything in sight – even creatures that bears have been known to eat. One day, the benevolent bear meets up with a human. This human proceeds to do something the bear cannot understand: he raises his axe and begins to cut down a tree.
Suddenly the bear doesn’t feel like hugging anymore and must make a difficult decision on how to stop this destruction in his forest.
One by one, a whole host of different animals and birds find their way out of the cold and into Bear’s cave to warm up. But even after the tea has been brewed and the corn has been popped, Bear just snores on!
See what happens when he finally wakes up and finds his cave full of uninvited guests—all of them having a party without him!
Is Bear the bravest? Or is it Buffalo?
The Very Cranky Bear is back, and this time he’s facing Boris the Water Buffalo in a battle of bravery!
He’s been cranky, hungry, and itchy — and now Bear will need to prove that he is truly brave.
Bruce the bear likes to keep to himself. That, and eat eggs.
But when his hard-boiled goose eggs turn out to be real, live goslings, he starts to lose his appetite. And even worse, the goslings are convinced he’s their mother. Bruce tries to get the geese to go south, but he can’t seem to rid himself of his new companions. What’s a bear to do?
In this tender account of a sleepless night in the bear cave, Big Bear sets out with all his patience and understanding to show Little Bear that the dark is nothing to be afraid of. When all the lanterns in the cave aren’t enough to quell Little Bear’s troubled emotions, Big Bear offers—in a final loving gesture—nothing less than the bright yellow moon and the twinkling stars!
A lighthearted nonfiction picture book, filled with useful facts about bears that will make you laugh so hard you won’t even realize you’re learning something!
A friendship between two unlikely companions: Bruun, an Inuit Eskimo boy, and a snow bear from the wild. As they spend the winter out on the sea-ice together, Bruun learns the ways of the polar bear, but when spring comes, he must return home to the ways of his own people.
What will happen, years later, when the two meet again and Bruun has become a hunter?
Get ready for a walk on the wild side in this image-packed book all about bears! Kids will learn about different kinds of bears, where they live, and what they do.
A delicious tale of a bear, lost in the city, who happens upon an unattended sandwich in the park. The bear’s journey from forest to city and back home again is full of happy accidents, funny encounters, and sensory delights.
The eating habits of bears is one of 14 topics in this clearly written look at three North American bears — grizzly bears, polar bears and black bears. In this fascinating book you’ll find out how and where bears live, how they give birth and raise their cubs, what they eat and much more.
It’s never bath time for Big Smelly Bear: his smell is simply unBEARable!
Then, one day, he wakes with an awful, unreachable itch. He could use a scratch from a friend, but he stinks so much that no one will help! Will Big Smelly Bear change his ways and bathe?
Two bears awaken from hibernation and go to town—literally. During their visit, they eat at a diner, dress up at a department store, and stop a couple of bank robbers, all the while mistaking the townspeople’s terror for friendliness.
The news-reporting-style of storytelling puts readers in the action and on the edge of their seats.
Each year, for as long as the forest has stood, a contest is held for the bears of the wood… Fred is the champion. He’s the best.
But being the best takes time and training, especially when it comes to having the loudest growl. Then, one morning, disaster strikes—Fred’s GRRRRR is gone! Oh, no! Will Fred find his GRRRRR and realize that there’s more to life than being a winner?
Mac and cheese, Carrot cake, Meatball stew: Bear loves when campers leave him grub. The park ranger does not. Smackity smack, Ranger pounds a sign into the ground: DON’T FEED THE BEAR! Upset—no more chewy cookies? No more juicy burgers?—Bear quickly crosses out the “don’t.” Now, it’s war in the park!
But when both Bear and Ranger end up losing out, will the two antagonists finally call a truce?
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