Jan Berenstain

It's not even a party. It's just a school day.

The best part: On the second page, inside Sister Bear's backpack, is a Valentine that says "My", a symbol of a heart, then a picture of a pair of pants, and then "4 You." Is that "My heart pants for you?" Who says that? That's just bizarre. "My heart shorts for you?" "...jeans for you?" None of those make any sense. It's next to one that's got a picture of a bee and then says "mine" underneath, obviously "Be mine." That's pretty common. Maybe just "My pants for you?" A bit direct for grade school, don't you think?

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Valentines are cool?

I'll trim your tree, if you know what I mean. And I don't.

It's a pretty inane and simple lift-the-flap book. I feel children of an age where they would still be interested in lift-the-flap books would also be tearing the books apart. But maybe my kids are more destructive than average children. The story is basically just a vehicle for the lift-the-flap gimmick. There's nothing to it; there's no message; nobody learns anything; nothing happens.

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Decorating Christmas trees is fun.

Have yourself a Beary little Christmas.

They have their own Bear Jesus? The world of the Berenstain Bears gets weirder and weirder as time goes on, and as Mike Berenstain builds on the legacy of his parents in a more and more Christian way. Especially given that at least one of the earlier books had a fox creature. Do the fox people have Fox Jesus? Or are they a lesser race that has to settle for the Jesus of another species?

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This is the story of Christmas.

What's an im-ag-in-a-shun?

"Go use your imagination." "How do we do that?" Like they've never imagined anything in their lives. It's kind of bland. It just seems like they're copying this older story instead of being very imaginative. It's like the writer was being lazy.

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Using your imagination is awesome!

Repetitive, overly simplistic pointless robbery book.

There's no real point. Pretty much everything is interchangeable. The characters are interchangeable. The plot points could have happened in any order.

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None.

Basically half a book about political responsibility.

Huh? I'm so confused. It's like they didn't even care enough to finish the book.

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Don't run for mayor?

Unnecessary explicit preposition instruction.

Well, that was a complete lack of a story. This is from a time when people thought that you had to explicitly teach people these things. You don't!

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None.

Mama flips out.

Maybe they could have a more natural consequence, like not being able to find what they're looking for, or falling over things that have been left in the middle of the floor. That happens too, and that could be a realistic consequence instead of Mama making threats because she's being taking advantage of as a parent.

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Keep your room clean.

Mixture of accurate information and inaccurate.

The doctor prescribes Papa some medicine for his cold, which is not a thing that exists. There is no medicine that gets prescribed for colds. They're viruses, not bacteria. But, hey.

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Don't be afraid of doctors.

Tiresome book about trucks.

It's pretty simplistic. It kind of makes me think of Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things that Go, which my kid had a copy of and which was a lot more interesting than this book, but apparently a lot of fun to rip into pieces as well.

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Trucks are awesome.