Tag Archives: berenstain bears

Kids’ Picks: Berenstain Bears By The Sea

MM is actually just starting to get into picking out his own bedtime stories. For awhile I’d pick the story and there’d be ones he enjoyed more than others but what we read was largely my call. Now he eagerly looks forward to picking out the story and sometimes surprises us by asking for an old favorite – a book we haven’t read in awhile – which is so cool to see that he’s really been paying attention and is starting to form favorites!

Lately it’s been all about The Berenstain Bears around here – we were given a huge pile of children’s books from Dan’s aunt, a lot of which were his as a child at some point, and of course I read a lot of the same books – we were both big Betenstain Bear fans for sure! But neither of us read any of the Step-Into-Reading editions which we’ve also acquired a couple of – and one of MM’s recent favorites is one of these books, called The Berenstain Bears By The Sea.

I love the catchy rhymes in this cute story of the Bear Family’s trip to the beach house. The bear cubs are of course anxious to get out the sea and start swimming, but mama and papa bear insist on getting the beach house ready for the stay, having a snack, and then of course waiting after they eat before swimming. It’s a short read with a good rhythm thanks to the rhyming text. Both Dan and I enjoy reading this one to him and sometimes MM likes to pretend to read it to himself, too. So cute.

I think he must be just as eager to hit the beach as we are, because MM has been asking for this book at naptime and bedtime non-stop lately! Luckily it’s one we both like, too!

What books are your kids reading right now?

Kids Picks: The Berenstain Bears’ Moving Day

We decided to pick this book up before our big move, in an effort to get my son ready for it and maybe try to explain to him what moving was. No easy task with a just barely three year old with the attention span of a gnat. Still, he is enjoying this book a lot and I think he might understand it better now than he did before we read the book. There are several books out there with this theme, designed to help kids cope with moving but I liked this one the best – especially because it was a Berenstain Bears book. My husband and I both grew up with this series and can still vividly remember reading them as children. So we always love a chance to share one of our favorites with MM and while we hadn’t read this particular title before, it was just as good and Berenstainy as all the other books.

The book describes how the Bear Family did not always live in their beloved tree house and tells about their first home in a cave on the mountain and how even though they liked their old home, there were some things they did not like and eventually they decided to move. It talks about the concerns Brother Bear had with moving, which I think most kids will share: Where will my toys and books go? Where are we moving? Why do we have to move? What about my friends? The answers are simple and reassuring and the story is charming and well told – basically, it’s a classic Berenstain Bears book. I highly recommend it and I think MM would, too.