The Berenstain Bears and the Gift of Courage, by Jan & Mike Berenstain
My Thoughts:
I enjoy the Berenstain Bears. I always have. Thousands of kids year after year laugh over and learn from the exploits of the cubs. Now those same kids will learn Biblical precepts and Bible verses, too. In the back of the book are questions for parents to ask their children that will help them process and understand the story — and help the parents and children bond over important communication issues. There are also a couple of activities to keep the kids thinking about what they’ve learned. I highly approve! Jan & Mike Berenstain have taken these bears from great to fantabulous!
~*~
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
and the book:
The Berenstain Bears and the Gift of Courage
Zonderkidz (April 9, 2010)
***Special thanks to Krista Ocier of Zondervan for sending me a review copy.***
Stan and Jan Berenstain introduced the first Berenstain Bear books in 1962. 
Mike Berenstain grew up watching his parents work together to write about and draw these lovable bears. Eventually he started drawing and writing about them too. Mike is married to Andrea, and they have three children. They live in Pennsylvania, in an area that looks a lot like Bear Country.
Visit the authors’ website.
Product Details:
List Price: $3.99
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Paperback: 32 pages
Publisher: Zonderkidz (April 9, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0310712564
ISBN-13: 978-0310712565
PRESS THE BROWSE BUTTON TO VIEW THE FIRST CHAPTER:
13 Comments
These books were always a big favorite with my daughter.
Nessa — they were always favorites in my classroom as well.
OK, I know this is overly literal but how does “The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between!” explain the acronym FIRST?
Dawg, that’s been buggin’ me for some time, so I finally went and looked it up. Fiction In Rather Short Takes. The “you never know” line modifies “wild card”. Awhile ago, the wild card featured an image of Abbott and Costello (y’know, ‘who’s on …”). Now, it’s just a query icon. Boring. Some lawyer must have complained.
I don’t write that copy, other than the “my thoughts” section, I just paste it. If I wrote the copy it might still be lame, but hopefully it wouldn’t be quite as confusing.
The Bears used to be able to do their thing without the Bible verses. The specific appeal to ‘Christian’ audiences, I think, is a step backwards. Of course, the whole ‘picture book’ genre has trained generations of people to seek out such pillars of enlightenment as Tumor and Executive Assistant Iris. Sometimes I wonder why we bother.
Amoeba, I don’t know about “a step backward” but I was sad because these books will never be allowed in my classroom and by labeling them “Christian” they have been segregated away from a huge part of their former reading audience who — without the label — didn’t care that the books still taught the same concepts.
I don’t think we have those over here, I’ve never heard of them. They sound interesting.
Akelamalu — they have been popular with American kids for ages.
LOVE IT!
Melli — so do I, mostly.
I am a fan of some of the B Bears books, and remember them from my own childhood as well as reading them to my kids.
Though I do believe Bible verses are good and character and morality is vital…
for some reason I am a little sad to see this development in these titles, and I am not sure exactly why.
Logo — did you read what Amoeba wrote? And my answer to him? Since these stories are now labeled Christian, a good many kids are never going to have the chance to see them.
Comments are closed.