Books About Becoming a Big Brother: 15 Picks by Age

The best books about becoming a big brother are not one kind of book. They are three, and most families only ever buy the first.

There is the book that tells him a baby is coming, months before anything visible happens. There is the book for the day he meets her. And there is the book for week three — when the visitors have stopped coming, the novelty has gone, and a four-year-old has worked out that this is permanent. That third book matters most, and it is the one almost every list leaves out.

This list is sorted two ways: by the age bands the American Academy of Pediatrics uses, and by which of those three moments each book is actually for.

Which big brother book for which moment?#

What does the American Academy of Pediatrics say about reading to a big brother?#

The American Academy of Pediatrics is unusually specific about this, and it is worth quoting, because no other list on this subject cites anything at all.

For toddlers aged one to two, its guidance on preparing your older child for a new baby says plainly: "Read children's books about newborns and siblings with your child." For preschoolers aged two to four it repeats the instruction — continue to read — and the stated purpose is to make words like sister, brother and new baby familiar before they arrive attached to a real person.

Two things follow, and both cut against how these books are usually sold.

One: you can start much earlier than the packaging suggests. The American Academy of Pediatrics band begins at one. Most big brother books are written for three.

Sibling friction, incidentally, is not a phase to be waited out: the American Academy of Pediatrics treats the relationship itself as something parents actively help children build, which is the long game a book at this stage is opening.

Two: the book is vocabulary, not prevention. The same guidance says to expect your child to regress a little — a toilet-trained child having accidents, an older child asking for a bottle — and calls it normal. No book stops that. A book gives him the words for it.

Big brother books for a toddler, aged 1 to 3#

At this age he cannot hold the idea of next spring. The book has to be about a baby that exists in the picture, now.

1. My New Baby#

Written by

Rachel Fuller

First published

2009

Ages

1–3

Format

Board book

Rachel Fuller's 2009 board book is almost wordless: a toddler and a newborn, page by page, doing ordinary things. Nappy, bath, pram, the baby crying, the toddler watching.

Reading it aloud: you supply the words, which is the point. Say what is happening in one short sentence per page and let him do the pointing. At eighteen months that is the whole transaction.

2. Za-Za's Baby Brother#

Written by

Lucy Cousins

First published

1995

Ages

2–4

Format

Picture book

Lucy Cousins wrote this in 1995, before Maisy made her famous, and it is more honest than most books aimed at children twice the age. Za-Za's mother gets tired, goes to hospital, then comes home holding somebody else, and everyone in the family is suddenly busy.

Reading it aloud: the run of pages where Za-Za waits while the adults fuss is longer than a toddler expects. Do not hurry it. That length is doing the work — it is what being ignored feels like, at toddler pace.

3. There's a House Inside My Mummy#

Written by

Giles Andreae

Illustrated by

Vanessa Cabban

First published

2002

Ages

2–4

Format

Picture book

Giles Andreae's 2002 book, illustrated by Vanessa Cabban, explains the bump in the only terms a two-year-old can hold: there is a house, someone lives in it, and one day they will come out.

Reading it aloud: he will put his hand on the bump while you read it. That is a good outcome, not an interruption — the book exists to move an abstraction onto something he can touch.

Big brother books for a preschooler, aged 3 to 5#

Now he can hold a plan, so the questions get concrete and slightly alarming: where will it sleep, is it staying, can we take it back.

4. I'm a Big Brother#

Written by

Joanna Cole

Illustrated by

Rosalinda Kightley

First published

1997

Ages

2–5

Format

Picture book

Joanna Cole's 1997 book, illustrated by Rosalinda Kightley, is the most-recommended title in this category and it earns the place. It is calm, plain and relentlessly positive: babies cry, babies need feeding, and you can do things babies cannot.

Reading it aloud: it is short enough to read twice in one sitting, which is what you want in the fortnight after you tell him.

An honest note: this is a before book sold as though it covers the whole transition. Read it in week three, after a real baby has been screaming since four in the morning, and its cheerfulness works against you. Buy it — and buy a second one from further down this list.

5. The New Baby#

Written by

Mercer Mayer

First published

1983

Ages

2–5

Format

Picture book

Mercer Mayer's 1983 Little Critter book is the practical one. Little Critter tries to play with the new baby, discovers she can do almost nothing, and works out what she can do.

Reading it aloud: it answers the question boys of this age genuinely ask — what is it for? — without pretending a newborn is fun.

6. There's Going to Be a Baby#

Written by

John Burningham

Illustrated by

Helen Oxenbury

First published

2010

Ages

3–6

Format

Picture book

John Burningham's 2010 story, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, is the best-made book on this list and the slowest. A boy and his mother talk across a whole pregnancy while he imagines the baby as a chef, a painter, a zookeeper — and admits, more than once, that he is not sure he wants it to come.

Reading it aloud: the ambivalence is the feature. If your son has said something you found shocking, this is the book that says it back to him without a lecture attached.

7. Hello in There!#

Written by

Jo Witek

Illustrated by

Christine Roussey

First published

2012

Ages

3–6

Format

Novelty picture book

Jo Witek's book, illustrated by Christine Roussey and first published in France in 2012, has a die-cut hole through the bump that grows page by page as the pregnancy does.

Reading it aloud: it is built to be read many times across months rather than once. Keep it where he can reach it and let the hole mark time.

8. The Berenstain Bears' New Baby#

Written by

Stan and Jan Berenstain

First published

1974

Ages

3–6

Format

Picture book

Stan and Jan Berenstain's 1974 book solves one specific problem better than anything newer: Small Bear's bed is too small, so Papa builds him a new one, and the old one goes to the baby.

Reading it aloud: if you are about to move him out of a cot, read this first and let the book make the argument. Handing something down is easier when it arrives as a promotion.

9. Babies Don't Eat Pizza#

Written by

Dianne Danzig

Illustrated by

Debbie Tilley

First published

2009

Ages

4–8

Format

Illustrated non-fiction

Dianne Danzig's 2009 book is not a story. It is a straight, illustrated account of what a newborn does, what a fontanelle is, why the umbilical stump looks like that, and why she cries so much.

Reading it aloud: dip into it rather than reading it through. It is the book for the boy who keeps asking why and is not satisfied by a rhyme.

Which books help after the baby actually arrives?#

This is the phase every other list acknowledges and then declines to solve. Search results will tell you jealousy is normal and then recommend nine books about waiting for a baby.

The books below are different in kind. In each one the older child behaves badly — takes things, hides things, runs away, seethes — and the story does not punish him for it. That is the mechanism. A boy who has been told all month how thrilled he is needs a book in which somebody like him is allowed not to be.

10. Peter's Chair#

Written by

Ezra Jack Keats

First published

1967

Ages

3–6

Format

Picture book

Ezra Jack Keats published this in 1967 and nothing since has beaten it. Peter's cradle has been painted pink. So has his high chair. He rescues his little blue chair, packs a bag, and runs away — as far as the pavement outside his own front door.

Reading it aloud: stop on the page where he finds he no longer fits in the chair. It is the whole book in one picture, and it does something no adult explanation can: it lets him outgrow the thing rather than lose it.

Why it is here and almost nowhere else: of seven pages ranking for this search, one recommends Peter's Chair. It is the most canonical picture book about sibling jealousy in print and it is missing from lists that recommend nineteen titles.

11. Julius, the Baby of the World#

Written by

Kevin Henkes

First published

1990

Ages

4–7

Format

Picture book

Kevin Henkes, 1990. Lilly loathes her new brother, says so at length, and is sent to the uncooperative chair for it repeatedly — until a visiting cousin insults Julius and Lilly turns on her instead.

Reading it aloud: it is very funny, and the laugh is the release. This is the one for the evening your son says something unforgivable about the baby and then watches your face to see what happens next.

12. The New Small Person#

Written by

Lauren Child

First published

2015

Ages

4–7

Format

Picture book

Lauren Child's 2015 book is the most precise account of the actual grievance. Elmore Green had everything to himself. Then a new small person arrives, licks his sweets, breathes on his things, and is admired for it.

Reading it aloud: the turn is late and quiet — the small person wakes in the night, frightened, and Elmore is the one who helps. Let the pause before that land.

13. A Baby Sister for Frances#

Written by

Russell Hoban

Illustrated by

Lillian Hoban

First published

1964

Ages

4–7

Format

Picture book

Russell Hoban's 1964 story, illustrated by Lillian Hoban. Frances runs away — under the dining table — and listens while her parents, who know exactly where she is, discuss how much they miss her.

Reading it aloud: her running-away song is meant to be sung badly. Do that. The comedy is what lets a child admit the feeling underneath it.

14. King Baby#

Written by

Kate Beaton

First published

2016

Ages

3–6

Format

Picture book

Kate Beaton's 2016 book takes the baby's side, ludicrously: a monarch who issues demands, holds court and expects service.

Reading it aloud: this is the family-joke book. Once King Baby is a phrase in your house, a two a.m. scream becomes a punchline instead of an outrage.

15. You Were the First#

Written by

Patricia MacLachlan

Illustrated by

Stephanie Graegin

First published

2013

Ages

3–7

Format

Picture book

Patricia MacLachlan's 2013 book, illustrated by Stephanie Graegin, is not about the baby at all. It is a list of everything the first child did first, and it is addressed entirely to him.

Reading it aloud: read it without mentioning the baby. Its whole value is that for five minutes the subject is him.

How do I choose a big brother book?#

Four questions, in this order.

1. Which moment are you buying for? Telling him, meeting her, or the weeks afterwards. Most families own three books for the first moment and none for the third.

2. Is he going to be furious? If your son is three or over and has had your undivided attention until now, buy at least one book from the section above in which the older child behaves badly. Buy it before you need it.

3. How long does he actually sit still? A book about a bump has to survive being read nightly for four months. Length is a cost at this age, not a feature.

4. Does he see himself in it? Every book above is about a boy who is not your boy — a bear, a mouse, a child drawn in 1967. That is the one gap on this shelf that buying more books does not close.

When should I give it to him?#

Give it when you tell him, not when the baby arrives.

Why the timing matters. A book handed over in a hospital room is competing with an actual newborn, and it loses. The same book read twenty times across two months has already done its work by then: the words are familiar, the sequence is familiar, and the ending — in which the family is still a family — has been proved to him twenty times.

A present from the baby. If you want a book to mark the day itself, let it come from her, not from you. It is a small piece of theatre and it works: something wrapped, waiting in the moses basket, which the baby "chose". It gives him a first transaction with her in which he receives something.

Keep one back. Not for the birth — for week three, when the flowers have died and nobody is visiting any more.

What to read next#

• A book about becoming a big brother or sister — what to put in the story if you are making one rather than buying one.
• The best books for 4-year-olds — where the rest of his shelf should be going.
• Books like The Kissing Hand — for the separation that often follows a new baby, when nursery or school starts.
• First day of school books — the other large change, frequently in the same year.

What can a personalized big brother or big sister book do that these fifteen cannot?#

Say his name.

That is not a marketing line. It is the specific failure of this entire shelf. A book about a new baby has to be written before it ever meets the child reading it, so the big brother in it is always somebody else: a bear, a mouse, Elmore, Peter. Fifteen books, none of them him.

For most subjects that does not matter. Here it does, because the whole difficulty is a boy suspecting he has stopped being the main character. It is also why a personalized big brother or big sister book is a different object from a nicer version of the fifteen above. Handing him a book in which he is, explicitly, the main character is not a metaphor for the reassurance. It is the reassurance.

That is what we make at KindFable. You add a photo, type a few lines about your family — his name, the baby's name, what he is worried about — and we write and paint him as the hero of a full 32-page storybook. His face, drawn as a character, on every page. And because a story like this needs more than one person in it, up to three companions can be drawn from photos of their own: the new baby, the other parent, the grandmother who has arrived to help, the dog who is also finding this difficult.

Here is a complete one, so you can judge it rather than take our word for it. Marco is five. His parents typed a few sentences about an invisible astronaut he talks to, and his dad is in the book as well — which is the part worth watching here, because a second real person joining the story is exactly what a big brother book has to do.

The actual book

Read it, and hear it

Everything below is the finished book — not a mock-up, not a selection of the good pages. The song is the one the family received.

The photo they uploaded

The character we drew

Read Marco's Mission ControlAll 13 spreads, exactly as the family received them, in the same page-flip reader they use at home.Open the book

Written from this story — not a stock track with a name dropped in.

The full story, in text

1. 1Marco marched into the space centre. Commander Pip floated above him, ready for the tour.
2. 2“Stay close, Commander Pip,” Marco said. “I want you to see everything.” Mission control began with one giant rocket.
3. 3Marco led the way. “This rocket flies up, whoosh, then circles Earth,” he said.
4. 4They visited the moon rocks. Marco explained each one, while Pip checked every crumb of space dust.
5. 5“This is how astronauts train,” Marco announced. Pip spun the pretend controls, beep, beep, beep.
6. 6Marco paused beside a wall of stars. “Can you follow all this?” he asked. Pip tapped his helmet twice.
7. 7“I can follow,” Pip seemed to say. Marco beamed, and together they hurried to the final rocket display.
8. 8At the rocket, Marco told the whole journey again. Pip beeped, twirled, and saluted. “Mission complete,” Marco called.
9. 9Outside, the car waited. Marco looked at Pip's empty seat, then held his breath.
10. 10“Pip needs a safe seat too,” Marco said. He reached for the buckle and made room.
11. 11The buckle clicked. Pip was ready, and Marco climbed in beside him. “Home together,” he said.
12. 12Pip was safe, Marco was homeward bound, and his mission control crew filled the car. Home together, softly.

The words to the song

[Verse 1]
Marco marched to space centre bright
Commander Pip floated in sight
One giant rocket stood so tall
Marco led the way for all

[Chorus]
Marco, Marco, beep, beep, beep
Round the stars and moon we sweep
Mission complete, let’s cheer and say
Home together all the way

[Verse 2]
Moon rocks, space dust, stars so wide
Pip spun controls by Marco’s side
The rocket flew, then circled Earth
Marco told the journey’s worth

[Chorus]
Marco, Marco, beep, beep, beep
Pip is safe, no need to peep
The buckle clicked, the car rolled on
Home together, softly, home

On KindFable it goes: name and age, one photo, a tick box for consent, a few lines about your child, and one of nine art styles. You see the cover, painted, before you pay for anything — the softcover and hardcover prices sit on one page, and the hardcover adds the narrated audiobook, with every book including its own song. Everything afterwards lives in your dashboard: the page-flip reader, the audio studio, and a reorder button for when the grandparents ask. You can read complete sample books before deciding anything.

Read the fifteen first. They are how he gets the words. Then, if you want one in which the big brother has his face, start with the photo.

Book covers are shown unaltered for identification, sourced from Open Library. Each cover remains the property of its publisher and illustrator. KindFable is not affiliated with any of the books recommended here.