When the Teddy Bears Came

We really like this book -- we've been reading it to our 3-year-old in anticipation of the birth of his baby sister, and he loves it. It strikes just the right note, subtly bringing up the displacement that older kids feel when a new baby is born, without becoming a huge negativity-fest the way that so many books in this genre (unfortunately) are. It's warm, full of love, and reassuring -- a great choice for the older-sibling-to-be.

We bought this book for our three year old a few months before his brother was born. We all loved it. It is a good story to stimulate discussion of a new or soon-to-arrive sibling, yet it doesn't have all of the negative acting out some other books of this genre contain. (Julius, Baby of the World, for one.) Another thing I liked about this book is that there are plenty of other things to focus on besides the sibling story so on nights when it turned out our toddler didn't want to talk about that, we could spend time talking about the bears and their names or all the ways they arrived. We ended up naming our new baby's teddy bear "Alice" in honor of this book. It was a nice way for our older guy to feel connected to the little one.