Magick1's Full Review: Stan Berenstain and Jan Berenstain - The Berenstai...
Brother bear, brother bear what do you see? I see a little bear that is scaring me! Oops, wrong story! Sorry about that. But, brother bear does play a mean little trick on sister bear in this story. I wonder if he will be taught a lesson or if she scares his sister so much that she cannot sleep. What do you think happens? Those of you with brothers and sisters, what happened to you or what did you do to your siblings? I don’t have siblings, so for me, I luckily avoided the sibling rivalry, the sibling fights and the scary sessions that siblings try to pull on one another. Sometimes I think thankfully so, others I think I really missed out on a lot of fun!
The Story
Brother and sister bear take a bit of time at the library trying to find the right book for them. They both enjoy reading quite a bit and they love to find new stories to read and jump into so they can experience a new adventure! Brother and sister have slightly different likes and dislikes though, as anyone would guess. There is an age difference and the obvious difference of girl verses boy.
Sister bear still enjoys storybooks and poems and things like this while brother enjoys books like mysteries and spooky stories! Brother bear showed sister the title of the book he selected “The Case of the Crying Cave - WOOOOO”. Sister was already saying that it looked scary to her just by seeing the cover of the book!
As the family settled down for their nightly family reading time, each person was reading their books. Brother was excited reading his story and piped up about it to the family. He asked sister if she wanted him to read his story to her! Sister was enchanted by the offer because her story about the three kittens was boring because they were all arguing about who was the prettiest kitten.
That’s when some of the trouble started. She hesitated, brother started taunting her by saying “Or are you scared?”. Thus, sister bravely said that she wasn’t scared, scooted over to her brother’s chair. He began reading the mystery to her. It was about some boy scouts that were camping overnight. They discovered a dark and secret cave. As brother kept reading the book and about the scary cave that the boy scouts were investigating, sister became scared and she booked out of the room to more of her brother’s taunting “Scaredy bear! Scaredy bear!”. Papa bear told brother to stop with the teasing, and he did. But the seeds were already planted in sister’s mind. A dark, secret, scary cave that says “whooooooo” to the boy scouts is enough for any child’s creative mind to run wild with when it is nighttime!
Sister bear, upon laying her head down for bedtime, found that the house wasn’t very quiet like it usually was. She also noticed that there were things in her room (that have always been there) that looked like scary monsters or mean, spooky things. Sister decided that everything in the room that used to be friendly and fun now seemed to be not so friendly. Then, brother did it. Brother, lying on the bottom bunk, started by making the wailing, spooky noise, “whoooooooooo” that really frightened sister bear.
Sister was startled, called for mama and papa bear. They ran into the room quickly, tripping over things as they did! There was a lot of talking, papa and mama bear told sister there wasn’t anything to be afraid of in the house (or the dark). They were all pretty grumpy with brother bear for playing this game!
Sister now could not sleep with the lights off and had to keep them on in the room. Brother bear wasn’t able to get to sleep with the lights on in the room. Needless to say, it was a very long night in the tree house!
During the morning, papa bear had a great idea of how to help sister bear and he led her to the attic to help her understand about imagination. He also told sister bear how he handled some times in his youth when the dark frightened him. This in turn helped sister bear tremendously. Do you think she was able to have brother bear finish reading the story about the mysterious cave? Or, do you think sister was too frightened and angry at brother for playing this mean game on her? In order to find that out, you will need to check the book out or purchase it, as I won’t tell you how it all ends!
Overall Impressions
I have to admit, the darkness can have an eerie quality to it. If you hear something unusual go thump, or if there are scary stories on the news about things that happen in your neighborhood in the night, don’t you find that you might be a bit unnerved and edgy? I know I have and it seems like I am focusing on every little sound that I haven’t noticed before. But, the rational thoughts kick back in and you realize that you are safe, the house is locked up and there isn’t anything happening.
Sometimes, when you are little, your thoughts are trying to put things together. You don’t realize what’s real and what’s not and you don’t realize that your imagination is taking over. Children have a hard time deciding what is real and what isn’t and they believe in monsters and things like this that can scare them a lot!
I know my daughter enjoys reading this book and loves the ending. She likes knowing that others get frightened too and ways to work through these issues in a practical way. We have read this book numerous times when she thought there were monsters in her room, or hiding in the hallway and it seemed to calm her down nicely. It’s a well written, cute book. The art work, like always, shows emotions well in the bears faces and you can tell what they are feeling! My daughter loves reading these books over and over again!
If you have a little one that seems to be getting a bit frightened by the sounds the house makes or believe that monsters are lurking beneath their bed, this might be a very nice book to pick up and read nightly! Enjoy!
Animals - Bears Juvenile / Children's Fiction - When Brother Bear brings a spooky book from the library, bedtime and the dark become ominous and threa...More at Barnes and Noble
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