Bedtime stories about bears.

It had been raining all day in the wood, so Barley the bear put on his yellow raincoat and went to the library. The woodland library was inside a hollow tree, and it was run by a very old badger with half-moon glasses.

"I need a book for bedtime," Barley told the badger. "The best one." The badger smiled. "Then take your time," she said.

Barley looked at a book about rockets. Too exciting. He looked at a book about a dragon. Too roary. He looked at a book about counting beetles. Too many beetles. He looked at a very big book about the history of honey. Too long, even for a bear.

At last, on the bottom shelf, he found a small blue book with a picture of a bear on the cover, a bear in a raincoat, just like him. It was about a little bear who went for a walk in the rain and came home to a warm bed. "This one," said Barley.

He walked home through the rain with the book tucked inside his raincoat to keep it dry. At bedtime, his dad read it to him, and Barley listened to the rain on the roof of their den, just like the rain in the story. By the last page, Barley was fast asleep.

Little Bilberry and her family had found a new den, a dry cave in the side of the hill. But it was bare and stony inside. "Let's make it cozy," said Mama Bear. "Everyone bring something soft."

Papa Bear went first. He came back with an armful of dry ferns, springy and green, and spread them across the floor. Big brother Alder brought a pile of crunchy leaves and tucked them around the edges, so no drafts could get in.

Mama Bear brought soft moss from the riverbank and laid it on top of the ferns, thick and squashy. The den was looking much better. Then everyone looked at Bilberry. "What will you bring?" asked Papa.

Bilberry thought hard. Then she trotted out into the evening and came back carrying something very carefully in her mouth: a bundle of fluffy seed heads from the thistles, soft as clouds. She put them right in the middle of the moss. "For the pillow," she said.

The whole family lay down together in their new den, on ferns and leaves and moss, with Bilberry's thistledown pillow in the middle. It was the softest den any of them had ever had. "Bilberry's pillow is the best part," said Alder. Bilberry smiled, snuggled between her parents and fell asleep.

Old Bear liked quiet things: slow walks, warm stones and evenings at the edge of the wood. So for his friends, he decided to make a quiet picnic.

He picked a basket of blackberries from the hedge, eating only a few on the way. He took a honeycomb from the hollow log, where the bees had said he was welcome to a little. He collected some crisp apples that had fallen from the old tree by the field.

He laid everything out on a flat, sunny rock at the edge of the wood, where you could see the whole valley. Then his friends arrived, one by one: Rabbit, Squirrel and the old Tortoise, who had set off at lunchtime to get there in time.

They didn't talk much. They ate the blackberries, and the honey, and the apples, and watched the sun go down over the valley, turning the sky gold and then pink and then deep blue. A few stars came out. An owl called from the wood.

"That was a lovely picnic," said Rabbit, at last. "Quiet," said Tortoise, "which is the best kind." One by one, the friends went home to bed. Old Bear stayed a little longer, on his warm stone, watching the stars. Then he ambled home through the dark wood, and was asleep before he'd even finished yawning.