The Three Bears
A curious girl enters the home of three bears while they are away. She tastes their porridge, tries their chairs, and explores their beds. When the bears return, they discover that someone has been in their house.
Why we recommend it
This traditional tale helps young readers follow a sequence of events, compare sizes, and notice repeated patterns. It also encourages discussion about respecting other people's homes and belongings.
Start of the book
There were once three bears who lived in a wood. Their porridge was thick, and their chairs and beds were good. The biggest bear, Bruin, was surly and rough. His wife, Mrs. Bruin, was called Mammy Muff. Their son, Tiny-cub, was like Dame Goose's lad; he was not very good, nor yet very bad.
Now Bruin, the biggest—the surly old bear—had a great granite bowl and a cast-iron chair. Mammy Muff’s bowl and chair you would no doubt prefer—they were both made of broken bricks, but both suited her. Young Tiny-cub’s bowl, chair, and bed were the best—this, big bears and baby bears freely confessed.
Mr. B----, with his wife and his son, went out one day for a short walk and to pay a visit. He left the door open, “For,” said he, “no doubt if our friend should call in, he will find us all out.”
Not two miles from dark Hazel-nut Wood, in which the great house of the three Bruins stood, there lived a young miss, daring, funny, and fair, and, from having bright curls, she was called Goldenhair. She had roamed through the wood to see what she could see, and she saw the Bruins all three going for a walk. Said she to herself, “To rob bears is no sin; the three bears have gone out, so I think I’ll go in.”
She entered their parlor and saw a great bowl, and in it a spoon like a barber’s pole. “That porridge,” she said, “can stay there long enough; it tastes like the food of the surly old bear.” She tried Mammy Muff’s, and she said, “Mrs. B----, I think your taste and my taste will never agree.” Then she tried Tiny-cub’s bowl and said, “This is nice; I will put in some salt and a thick slice of bread.” She ate it all, and the porridge soon made her so heavy that the chair she sat on broke down with her weight. The bottom fell out, and she cried in dismay, “This is Tiny-cub’s chair, and oh, what will he say? His papa is, I know, the most savage of bears—his mamma is a fury; but who cares for her? I’m sure I do not; and then, as for her son, that young bear, Tiny-cub—from him shall I run? No, not I, indeed; but I will not sit here—I’ll break the floor next, that’s what I most fear.”
