Mom, There's a Bear at the Door

This adorable story is a reflection of the inventiveness of children, and the charming ways in which they can blend imagination and reality with utter conviction.

As the story begins, a little boy announces to his mom that there is a bear at the door. She asks her son all kinds of questions, such as why the bear has come to their 11th floor apartment (to see the sea from the rooftop, he replies); how he got to their apartment from the forest (he rode a bike to the bus stop of course!); what he wants for lunch (cake: two kinds!); and so on.

The boy assures his mom that after the bear has seen the sea and eaten the cake, he will make the journey back to the forest, and then go to sleep after such a long day.

The amusing illustrations by show more Manuela Olten were created using acrylic paint and colored pencil, and show the bear and the boy doing various activities throughout the day.

I particularly love the endpapers that show bear prints going across the floor.

Both the author and illustrator are German. Eerdman’s publishes a number of foreign children’s books in translation, allowing American readers to get a broader perspective of themes that appeal to children in other countries.

Evaluation: Both parents and children will find this entertaining story appealing. show less

In a back-and-forth conversation (that would make an excellent read aloud for two readers), a mother and son discuss the unlikely arrival of a bear at the door of their eleventh-floor apartment,

"Mom, there's a bear at the door!
A bear?
A bear.
But we live on the eleventh floor!
That's why he's here."

No question that the mother poses (and there are many) goes unanswered. The bear wants to see the sea. He rode up in the elevator. He took the bus in from the forest. What makes it particularly amusing are the brightly painted illustrations of the large bear engaged in these activities. His impishly, apologetic look as he squeezes into an already crowded elevator is priceless. The mother's questions are printed in red, the boy's in black. While show more it is assumably a story of a young boy's imagination, the endpapers playfully suggest that perhaps a bear DID visit the apartment building.

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When a child spies a bear in the hallway on the eleventh floor of his apartment building, he explains to his mother just how the bear got there (bike and bus) and why (to view the sea which is not visible from his forest). This is a wacky, charming story with simple understated illustrations.

A child and his mother have a conversation about a bear who appears at their door on the eleventh floor of their apartment building. The child has a perfectly logical answer for all his mother's perfectly logically questions. Therein lies the humor. The illustrations are simple but not without details. One wonders about the stuffed bear pictured several times. I absolutely love the colors starting with the brilliant red for the cover. Can evolve into a 'what is real' conversation.

I read this book to my kids ages 6 and 7 and they loved it. The conversation the mother had with the child in the book was similar to many I've had with my children over the years. I appreciated the difference in text between the mother's words and the child's. This avoided the tedious "She said, he said" repetition. Illustrations were awesome and funny. This will definitely be on our re-read list for bedtime.

This is a fun little book that focuses on a mother & son's rather logical conversation regarding the bear that has shown up at their apartment door. Because, you know, there's a chain of reasonable reasons why a bear would be on the 11th floor of an apartment building in the middle of a busy city rather than its cave in the far off woods. Great preschool, early elementary, or family read aloud.

Mom, There's a Bear at the Door depicts a two-way conversation between a mother and her imaginative son. The young boy tells a tale of a bear's journey (in reverse) from the forest to their eleventh floor apartment. Mom helps encourage his creative storytelling by prompting him with questions. The book's illustrations are bright and colorful... and I love the way Manuela Olten chose to draw the characters eyes!