Earlier this month it was time for my son to visit the doctor and he was almost certainly going to be getting at least one shot. He's been afraid of shots ever since he got a very traumatic one during an emergency room visit (traumatic for everybody involved, I should add..). In addition to the occasional mentions about it in passing and how it's a normal thing, we also did what any reasonable millennial parent would do: we pulled "The Berenstain Bears Go to the Doctor" off the shelf and used it as a gateway to get him more comfortable with the idea of getting shots. Now I'm not here to lie to your face and tell you it magically made him not afraid of shots. As an experienced parent I've long since given up on the hope of anything like that ever happening. But just the exposure to the topic and being presented with potential outcomes will help them mentally process it and hopefully help them handle the situation better when the time comes. P.S. I'm not saying it's just because of the book, but he was significantly less afraid come shot time than I expected (woohoo!).
I realized that I actually do this a lot. As a parent I find myself picking out a nice collection of books for bedtime routine, and one of these books is almost always a special type of book that will match well with where my children currently are in their life. That's easily half of our collection. Books about sharing? Of course. Books about failure? Oooooh ya. Books about learning to go to the bathroom? We got at least 4 of them (potty training is tough..). I didn't know this until about 1 minute ago, but I'm talking about books that focus on social-emotional learning (SEL) or what seem to be called "developmental bibliotherapy" books (this all makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about, I assure you I'm just an amateur).
Now I've read a lot of children's books. 3000+ days and counting, and I've developed some opinions. That's initially what led me to want to start this blog in the first place, as you know, and along the way I've read some truly great books and some truly terrible ones. Usually when I think about these top-end books they are normally "the classics," which aren't always the ones with moral lessons slapped like a bumper sticker across the page. However, like I said, I am still somehow always taking these books off the shelf, so I think it's important to highlight another axis that can make a children's book good. Of course there are books with beautifully written prose, books with illustrations that perfectly add to the words on the page, and stories that spark the imagination and curiosity of a child. But then there are books that just help kids understand the world around them better and are just something that meets their needs at the right moment.
It's always the bears
That brings me to what I really want to talk about: The Berenstain Bears. 9 times out of 10, that bibliotherapy book I'm picking off the shelf will be the Berenstain Bears, and I think it's well past time that we talk about these books in much more detail.
If you were to ask me "what book(s) do you think of when you think about children's books?" I would probably answer with the Berenstain Bears. Some of that comes from my millennial upbringing. I was essentially brought up on these books, and things like the intro page for "The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food" are basically imprinted in my mind (I can practically taste those Choco Chums).
Ok, quick aside. There is like this huge "Mandela effect" phenomenon that people have where they remember them as the BerenstEIN Bears instead of the BerenstAIN Bears. I must say that those people must not have read nearly as much Berenstain Bears as me, because I definitely don't share that belief. That being said, Fruit of the Loom absolutely had a cornucopia logo and nothing can convince me otherwise.
I'm sure my parents pulled the Berenstain Bears books off the shelf to read to me for the same reasons I pull them off the shelf for my kids, and the most obvious reason for that is just because there are so many of them. You could find a lot of individual books covering topics like "fear of the dark" or "getting along with friends," but what the Berenstain Bears bring to the table is they almost comprehensively cover ALL of these topics and within the same universe. They aren't the only series attempting to do this though; they are just in my opinion the best (although there are other good ones, don't get me wrong on that). So what makes them the best? Well, it's for all of the reasons that I stated above. They are certainly enjoyable to read. The prose won't win any artistic awards, but it flows off the tongue well and I never find myself dreading to read some big clunky paragraph like in some other books. The characters all have distinctive personalities that stay consistent (* ok, so not always consistent, we'll get to that in a bit) through the books. The illustrations are distinctive, detailed, and add so much to reading the story, and these are one of those books where my kids ask that I don't turn the page yet because they are still wanting to soak up everything there. There are so many details of the way the illustrations are done that I just love and can't wait to talk about them more.
Now we get to the "morals of the story" part of the books. That's why you are reading them anyways. This might be the most controversial take that I have too, and I wouldn't argue if some people disagreed here. I choose these books because as a parent I generally agree with how the authors approach these topics and how they resolve them. Does that mean I'm always in total agreement and that these books are basically my moral compass? No. Will I call out a particular book that I think missed the mark? Yes. But either way I think they offer lessons that my kids can take with them into the real world and be more equipped to solve them on their own.
As you've probably surmised already, I own a lot of Berenstain Bears books. Some super old from my childhood, some new ones to fill out the collection (with accompanying stickers of course).
Ok, so another quick aside. What are your opinions of stickers inside books? I'm so torn. As a kid I thought it was the coolest thing ever and I was desperate to take them out and just stick them on anything nearby. As a parent though, I have this weird aversion to my kids taking them out. I think part of that is I don't want yet another peely sticky on their bookshelf, but also it makes the book feel a bit more, er, empty once all the stickers are out of it? Ok, ya, I'm weird..
40+ books, no particular order
I have decided it's well past time that I start reviewing all of these books in my collection. Sadly I don't have all of them (yet), but I have 40+ and am going to do a Berenstain Bears review marathon until I've reviewed every single one in my collection. I'm going to talk about which ones are my favorites and least favorites, my thoughts on if Papa is portrayed as a bit too much of a dummy, why the series dropped off a cliff and lost its way once Stan died in 2005, and every single plot hole that I identify along the way. I'll probably also write some blog posts along the way to cover specific topics that require a bit more discussion (such as the lines that are so good we constantly use them in our daily life). I hope you follow along with me down a sunny dirt road deep in Bear Country.