"A bear finds a piano in the woods, learns to play it, and travels to the big city to become rich and famous, but ultimately discovers that his old friends in the forest back home are still the best audience of all"--
Bear, feeling very grown-up, says goodbye to his stuffed rabbit, Floppy, and starts his first day of school but soon he is missing Floppy and worrying that he is not ready to be a big bear, after all.
As Baby Bear tries to find his way home through the forest, he asks many different woodland creatures for help and finds that much of their advice is more comforting than helpful.
Jeff the bear is sure he has forgotten something when he sets out from home, but none of the animals he meets initially inform him that he is only wearing his underwear, until he reaches his friend Anders the hare--who quickly thinks of a way to avoid embarrassing Jeff, by starting a fashion trend.
"Follow a magnificent polar bear through a fantastic world of snow and shockingly blue sea. Over the ice, through the water, past Arctic animals and even a human...where is he going?"--
Each night, the moon rises, the bread rises, and Muffin the cat rises to make her neighborhood rounds. When a mysterious new sound comes from Little Bear Bakery, Muffin is on the case.
"When the gift of a balloon floats into Bear's life, the two companions embark on a journey of discovery as small as a clearing in the forest . . . and as deep as the sky"--
Little Mouse worries that the big, hungry bear will take his freshly picked, ripe, red strawberry for himself. There is only one solution: to share the delicious strawberry with the narrator and eat it all up before the bear can get it.
When an author starts writing, he hears the voices of readers demanding that he add more bears to the story until there are too many bears crowding out the story.
