The 10 strangest and most wonderful beds in children’s books

From Harry Potter’s cupboard to mattress mountains, children’s literature is full of extraordinary beds. Which of these fired your childhood imagination?

Perhaps it’s not surprising there are some many famous stories that feature notable beds. After all, sleep is so important for children’s development: they grow and gain strength in a cozy dream state. 

It goes all the way back to the Bible and the story of Moses. His mother hid him amongst the bulrushes in an attempt to save him from the evil Pharaoh. To this day, parents still put their newborns safely to sleep for the first few months in a basket named after this famous prophet, the Moses Basket. 

The bed is a recurring theme in children’s literature. There’s the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears whose beds were too hard, too soft, and just right. Or think of the  children in Enid Blyton’s books who often slept on “moss and heather.” As a child I was more adventurous. I wanted a bed in a treehouse like The Swiss Family Robinson. And did you know fairies sleep in foxgloves? That’s why you must never cut them. My daughter learnt this from Susannah Marriott’s A Field Guide To Fairies.  

Here are ten more children’s stories with notable beds. 

1) The magic bed in Bedknobs and Broomsticks

You definitely know the film, based on the book by Mary Norton. During World War II, three little Londoners are sent to the country where they are placed in the care of an apprentice witch called Eglantine Price. Don’t worry! She uses her powers for good to help the war effort. In exchange for the children’s secrecy, she casts a travelling spell on a bedknob that transforms their ordinary bed into a magical one that flies. It even takes them on an undersea adventure.   

2) The grandparents’ bed in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

What child doesn’t know Roald Dahl’s story of the boy who wins one of five golden tickets to tour an enchanted chocolate factory? What always struck me was that he was so poor that all four of Charlie Bucket’s grandparents share one bed, right in the middle of their tiny house: Grandpa Joe (the best grandparent) and Grandma Josephine at one end; Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina at the other. 

3) Harry Potter’s cupboard under the stairs

My daughter is just discovering JK Rowling’s stories about the boy wizard who sleeps in a cupboard under the stairs at the wicked Dursley house, until he is whisked off to Hogwarts’ School of Witchcraft where he unravels the secrets around his history and his fate. She even laughed upon realising why we refer to the storage space under our stairs as The Harry Potter Cupboard.  

4) Mowgli’s treetop in The Jungle Book

Mowgli the mancub sleeps with the wolf pack that raised him. He also sleeps in trees, though that does get him into trouble occasionally (see picture). I’m going to go out on a limb here (badum-tish!) and say I’m pretty sure that Rudyard Kipling’s story influenced Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  

5) The gigantic mattress mountain in The Princess and The Pea 

This classic Hans Christian Anderson tale is about a supposed princess who is made to spend a night in an uncomfortable bed thanks to a prince’s meddlesome mother. The bed seems like the most comfortable ever, comprised of twenty mattresses with twenty eider-down duvets on top of that, but the princess can’t sleep. Unbeknownst to her, there is a pea at the bottom of it all planted by the Queen who reasons that only a true princess would be sensitive enough to feel it. 

Moral of the story? Mothers-in-law will mess with you.   

6) The very, very old bed in Sleeping Beauty

Poor Sleeping Beauty was cursed at her christening when an evil sorceress appeared and said the girl would fall into a death like sleep for a hundred years upon pricking her finger on a spinning wheel. Of course this comes to pass and Sleeping Beauty slumbers for a century until kissed by a prince who breaks the spell. There are actually no specifics about her bed. For her sake, I hope it was comfy memory foam. 

7) The grand bed in The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler 

A personal childhood favourite. Set in suburban Connecticut in the 1960s, this story by EL Konigsburg is about two children who run away from home and hide out in The Metropolitan Museum of Art where they discover an important secret. It only makes sense then that the two children, Claudia and Jamie Kincaid, should spend their nights snoozing in an ornately carved four post bed located in the English Renaissance Hall. The card explaining the furniture on display reads, “State bed–scene of the alleged murder of Amy Robsart, first wife of Lord Robert Dudley.” Doesn’t get much grander than that!

8) Thumbelina’s walnut shell bed

Another slice of Hans Christen Andersen magic. This is the story of a tiny girl who falls in love with the Flower Fairy Prince. She is so small that she snuggles into a walnut shell each night. Her mattress is made of small flowers and she covers herself with a rose petal blanket. Sweet.

9) The wooden shoe in Wynken, Blynken, and Nod 

“Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night, Sailed off in a wooden shoe– Sailed on to a river of crystal light, Into a sea of dew. . .” 

My mother read this poem by Eugene Field to me almost every night when I was a child. The verses were so dreamy and melodic they rocked me like gentle waves and always sent me straight to sleep. I always loved that the wooden shoe was a metaphor for “a wee one’s trundle bed.” 

10) The toy cradle in The Tale of Two Bad Mice 

Hunca Munca and Tom Thumb are two naughty mice who steal useful things from a doll’s house – like the tiny toy cradle that Hunca Munca’s baby sleeps in. 

My daughter adores this Beatrix Potter story, perhaps because she has her own toy mice that live in a doll’s house: Queen Pip and her baby, Maile Mouse. Guess where Maile Mouse sleeps? In a Moses basket… which brings me right back to where I started.   

Did you have a favourite fantasy bed you yearned to sleep in as a child? We’d love to add them to our list. 

At the Children’s Furniture Company we believe kids’ furniture should be practical but with a sprinkle of magic dust. Browse our range of children’s beds here.