The Berenstain Bears and the Nerdy Nephew

IS THIS CUB FOR REAL?
His clothes are really weird, and he seems to enjoy making everyone feel stupid—even teacher Bob. Ferdy is a genius... except at standing up to Too-Tall's gang of bullies. Is the visitor from Planet Nerd worth saving—and if so, how?

In television, some episodes are referred to as "bottle" episodes. They are often filler, written so that they can be produced on sets already built, and sometimes use standard plots that don't require much time to write and shoot. This is done because such episodes are cheap to produce, and the saved money can be used for other episodes that require a higher budget.

The Berenstain Bears and the Nerdy Nephew is like a bottle episode of the Big Chapter continuity. Now, if The Berenstain Bears was a live action TV show, Nerdy Nephew probably wouldn't count as a bottle episode because it features new locations, like the Bearsonian Institution, and introduces a new major character, the titular nerdy nephew, Ferdy Factual. Yet, after the previous two books were joined together in the Bonnie Brown story arc, Nerdy Nephew feels like an extra. Its plot is nothing special. New cub in town, has trouble fitting in, Too-Tall roughs him up, but then the cub proves he can be relied on and happily ever after. That's basically Nerdy Nephew.

The story sting is basically exactly the same as the front cover, just with text.

All of a sudden Too-Tall's big hands shot out. He hit Ferdy smack in the chest. Ferdy went flying backward over Skuzz.
Ferdy picked himself up. He clenched his small fists at his sides. "Give me my book!" he yelled in a high voice. But another gang member was already kneeling behind him. Too-Tall simply pushed Ferdy to the ground again. The whole gang roared with laughter.

The summary on the copyright page says, "Brother and Sister Bear don't realize the problems they will face when they agree to help Professor Actual Factual's super-smart nephew fit in at school." It's funny: I can handle the Bear family being named Mama, Papa, Sister, and Brother, but the name Actual Factual is too ridiculous for me. Suspension of disbelief is a curious thing.

The book begins with a disappointed Papa looking at a math test Brother has brought home, complete with C-minus grade. Brother argues that the test was really a pop quiz, and he didn't have much chance to review the lesson because he is busy with football practice, the chess team, and cramming for the quiz bowl.

Papa instantly regrets that his efforts to raise his son to be motivated have ended up making his son a wannabe overachiever. "Do you think that maybe you're trying to do a little too much?" Papa subtly hints. Brother says, no, of course he's not trying to do too much because he's going for the All-Around Cub award.

Don't blame yourself, Papa. You were just trying to be a good father.

But this whole opening about the bad test grade is entirely pointless, because Professor Actual Factual of the Bearsonian Institution calls, and that's when the story actually begins. Professor Factual's brother and sister-in-law, who are both scientists, are going away on a dig, and they've left their son, Ferdinand, in the professor's care. He's called to ask that Brother and Sister help Ferdy adjust to public school.

Of course, Brother and Sister are happy to help a new cub out, so they agree. The next morning, after stopping by Cousin Freddy's house to tow him along, they head to the institute. There, they meet the nerdiest little cub that ever walked a sunny dirt road. Professor Factual introduces his punk-ass nephew. Ferdy is a rude snob. He refuses to shake Brother's hand when the other offers it, and makes very clear that the idea of going to public school is a very dreadful one to him. But evidently, Professor Factual is making him go. The four cubs head on their way to Bear Country School, where Ferdy will be a school student for the very first time.

Sister is a little slow on the uptake. When Ferdy says he has never been to school before, she thinks he's behind in his education. In fact, Ferdy has been taught very well by his parents, except in the art of being a nice guy. His father is an archaeologist, and his mother is a paleontologist. He asks Sister, "Do you know what a paleontologist is?"

Her answer is very cute. "Pail-ee-on-tol-o-gist... someone who makes pails?"

Ferdy laughs so hard he's about to cry. "That's priceless!" he yells, which Stan and Jan seem to be trying to make into his catchphrase, because he says it a couple of times. "And I suppose an ark-ee-ol-o-gist is someone who makes ships? He-he-he!"

Ferdy asks about about Mama and Papa bear. He clearly has no respect for Papa's lowly occupation as a carpenter, but he finds great humor in the way Sister describes Mama: "She's a quiltologist!"

"A quiltologist! Ha-ha-ha! Priceless!"

The only thing that Ferdy enjoys more than making fun of other cubs is birds, and he gets distracted by one. While he's off birdwatching, there's a lovely little illustration of Sister, Brother, and Freddy seething. Ferdy is not making it easy to be nice, and now the three cubs are stuck, because they promised to be nice to someone they would love to knock on his tin can. Or perhaps, they'd like to rearrange his face.

Fred's especially annoyed. He's been called a nerd a lot, and this was in 1993. See, in between the film Revenge of the Nerds and around the time Forbes officially named Bill Gates the wealthiest man on the planet, nerds were going through a transition phase. They were, before the movie, subjects of ridicule. The movie made them sympathetic, but not necessarily the kind of people you wanted to be. It wasn't until Gates became the Forbes poster child that nerds embraced the moniker as a compliment. It's very clear that Freddy knows being a nerd is on the way up, but now here comes Ferdy, being the little punk that he is, and Fred loathes the idea of being lumped into the same category as him.

Anyway, it's not that Ferdy is smart that bothers the cubs, it's that he's mean. Very mean. They almost want Too-Tall to give the cub some trouble and out-mean him. Well, they're in luck, because they arrive at school and there's Too-Tall and his gang, causing trouble.

"Who is this individual?" Ferdy asks Brother. Too-Tall's reply is priceless. "Who're you calling an individual?" Ferdy writes something down in his notebook, saying something about interest in Bear Country's fauna.

Queenie McBear, who's just hanging around, apparently, chimes in on the conversation. "I think he's kind of cute," she says, and you know that's not going to make Too-Tall very happy.

Inside the building, Brother shows Ferdy the trophy case, filled with awards won by Bear Country School's finest sports teams. That's when Ferdy says what Brother probably finds to be the most insulting thing the cub has ever said. "Ah, yes, sports.... The opiate of the mindless."

It turns out that Ferdy has been placed in Teacher Bob's class, the one that happens to include Brother, Freddy, Queenie, Too-Tall, and his gang. Even in class, Ferdy's a punk. When Teacher Bob asks Ferdy "Who" did he talk to in the office when he enrolled, Ferdy corrects with, "Whom did you talk to." Teacher Bob takes it all in stride; he's seen students like Ferdy before. Good for him, I say, but maybe it wouldn't hurt to give the boy a whipping.

There's an illustration on the page showing Brother with a thought-bubble over his head, within which is Ferdy, a knife, a pistol (with something dripping out of the muzzle), a bottle of poison, and a stick of wood with a big nail through it. Brother wants to kill Ferdy. That crack about sports really got to him, I guess.

Brother and Freddy are so ticked off at Ferdy that they consider leaving him be during recess when Too-Tall comes by to threaten a beat down, but they don't have the heart. They find Ferdy hanging out with, of all people, Queenie. Freddy can't believe his eyes. Queenie like a nerd, I mean, "stuck-up jerk," like Ferdy? Brother, who seems to know better, surmises that Queenie doesn't like Ferdy at all (or Too-Tall, for that matter). She just wants to "make trouble so she can sit back and enjoy the fireworks."

Eventually, a steamed Too-Tall comes by and takes Ferdy's notebook. Thumbing through, he finds the dumbest gag in the entire Berenstain Bears canon: "Too-Tall: schoolyardus bullyus." It's the scientific name for "schoolyard bully," because Latin words end in -us. Get it?

While Ferdy is talking down to Too-Tall, Skuzz sneaks behind him and crouches, giving Too-Tall the chance to give Ferdy a good shove onto his butt. Really, I've got to say we're kind of rooting for Too-Tall in this one, after the way Ferdy has been acting. To add insult to injury, the gang starts playing monkey-in-the-middle with Ferdy's notebook. Ferdy is desperately trying to retrieve it before Teacher Bob steps in. Teacher Bob makes the gang run laps as punishment. Run laps.

I know this was the Nineties, and bullying wasn't quite taken as seriously back then, but even at my school I think harassment like that at least meant a call to the parents.

As the gang starts running their laps, Queenie sidles on up to Ferdy and says, "Schoolyardus bullyus—say, that's pretty cute." She helps Ferdy dust off his clothes. The illustration shows him with a dopey smile on his face.

This is where the book really starts to lose me, because Ferdy can't be so dense that he believes that a girl like Queenie is endeared by his jerkassness and stupid attempt to Latinize "schoolyard bully."

Anyway, after that episode on the playground, Ferdy gets worse. He writes a list of all the mistakes he finds in the textbook (thank goodness Bear Country isn't in Texas) and posts the list on the class bulletin board. He corrects misnamed rivers on the classroom map, and when Teacher Bob gives out the homework assignment, Ferdy pretends to fall asleep and makes loud snoring noises (in the illustration, it appears that even Brother and Freddy can't help but find this one funny).

After school, Brother asks Ferdy if he would join the quiz bowl team, to which Ferdy replies, "I'll put it on my list of things to think over.... It will probably be a while before I let you know, though. It won't be high on the list."

At home, Mama asks Brother and Sister how things went with Ferdy, and the cubs have no qualms letting her and Papa know how detestable the boy is. "All the cubs hate him. Now, I hate him, too," Brother says, with an emphatic "Me too!" from Sister. Mama, the wizened bear that she is, realizes that Ferdy's problem is he just plain doesn't know how to act around other people.

Ferdy, Mama explains, is the kind of cub who is so afraid of not being liked, he doesn't even try. He is afraid no one would want to be friends with him, so he doesn't bother trying to make friends. It makes him feel safe, even when other cubs, like Brother, Sister, and Freddy, try to be nice to him.

I like the next paragraph:

Brother thought for a moment. Mama was usually right about these things. But everything she had just said seemed so complicated. A second opinion won't hurt, he thought
"What do you think, Papa?" Brother asked.

The Berenstain Bears series as a whole has been criticized, fairly, for making Papa always a buffoon and Mama always reasonable, so it struck me as significant that Brother seems almost wary of Mama's explanation and asks Papa for a second opinion. I wonder if this little scene was a response to the criticism.

Anyway, Papa tells the cubs the story of Wimpy Walter. Wimpy Walter was a cub just like Ferdy who went to school with Papa. He pushed other people away and got teased, but a few cubs kept being nice to him and, eventually, made friends. He grew up to be Professor Walter McLair who teaches bee science at the university. Brother met him on a field trip, and liked him very much. So the cubs decide to give Ferdy a little more time.

The next chapter is called "How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Angles." I like that. That's how Elizabeth Barrett Browning should have written it.

The next day, Ferdy remarkably seems to be in a good mood. He doesn't tease or put Sister down at all. He even whistles on the way to school. When Brother offhandedly mentions he had trouble with the homework last night, Ferdy reveals that he received a call from Queenie, who was having her own problems with the homework. He was only so glad to help.

"She was most grateful," he says. "She's a very sweet girl, that Queenie...."

Uh oh. You can tell what's gotten into Ferdy, can't you?

Ferdy is distracted by a yellow-bellied sapsucker, and while he's off checking it out, the other cubs agree that he could be in for some serious trouble if he takes Queenie seriously. Obviously, Queenie doesn't like Ferdy at all, she just wanted to mooch homework answers off of him. He's clueless, though. Now, he's going to incur the wrath of Too-Tall for nothing.

In class, Queenie continuously looks back at Ferdy, smiling, in full view of Too-Tall. He gets very angry very quickly. Ferdy, who can't resist the chance to show off right now, asks Teacher Bob to allow him to do a report on simple machines, a report that isn't due until next week. Ferdy gives the report, but remarkably doesn't act like a snob, in fact, it's an "interesting and lively report." Queenie's got him feeling so good he genuinely wants to share knowledge, not show it off. Of course, he is showing off. Showing off to Queenie.

Ferdy caps it off by demonstrating the power of the lever by using one to lift the classroom piano. Pay attention to that, that will be important later. The whole class is so impressed, they applaud, especially Queenie. The illustration shows Too-Tall not applauding, but looking very pissed off. In fact, he's not even sitting in his seat; he's standing next to Brother's chair, for some reason.

At recess, it's Freddy's turn to watch Ferdy and keep an eye out for Too-Tall. Freddy, who's usually pretty smart, screws it up big this time. He reports to Brother that they have nothing to worry about. It seems that Too-Tall isn't giving the nerd any trouble, Freddy says. "In fact, I just heard him ask Queenie to invite Ferdy into the dodgeball game."

Freddy, come on, man. You think Too-Tall is honestly inviting Ferdy to a friendly, gentleman's dodgeball match? What happened to you?

Fortunately, Brother knows this is bad news, and they run to the dodgeball court. Ferdy is standing in the middle of the circle, and probably has no idea how to even play the damn game. Queenie is cheering him on, though, so he's probably just going to go with it anyway. Too-Tall throws a ball and it hits Ferdy right in the kneecap. The other dodgers in the circle figure out that this is all a revenge plot by Too-Tall so they run out of the way. Another ball hits Ferdy square in the back. Then another comes flying toward Ferdy. This one hits him in the back of the head, and he falls to the ground. He doesn't seem hurt at first, but he sees Queenie laughing so hard she has tears coming out of her eyes, and that hurts.

Brother and Freddy, evidently, just stood there and watched the whole time. Finally, they rush over to try to help him up, but he pushes them off, yells at them to leave him alone, and runs away.

And when I say runs away, I mean it. He isn't in class when recess is over. Brother reports to Teacher Bob that the boy is missing. Teacher Bob calls the office, but the office can't reach Professor Factual, so they call the police.

Search parties are set up, and Papa volunteers the Bear family to search the eastern part of the forest. Papa recalls that Wimpy Walter once ran into the forest and stayed there for two days. Presumably, he was a survival expert who fed on nuts and berries and small game.

When the Bears reach the forest, Papa heads off to search Forbidden Bog, and Mama and the cubs search the lakefront. As they search, Mama and the cubs find find Professor Factual pouring lake water into a test tube. Apparently, he's been there all day, because he's completely oblivious to the fact that Ferdy is missing. He quickly joins the search, though, especially when he hears that Papa has gone into Forbidden Bog, which has a quicksand danger.

As they search the bog, they hear a THWOCK! Yes, a THWOCK! Investigating the sound, they find Papa, covered in grime, and Ferdy, who has just used a tree branch as a lever to pull Papa out of a big patch of quicksand. He's a little punkass hero.

News of Ferdy's rescue spreads quickly, and the cub is hailed as a hero. Now that he's well liked, and now that he's proven that being smart actually has real world applications, Ferdy's a little bit friendlier. He even tells Brother he'll join the quiz bowl team. Brother is happy about that, but now he's got another problem. Because Too-Tall gave Ferdy a good humiliating, he's been suspended, and can't play on the football team for the upcoming game. The team is playing the Bruin City Bulldogs, and they are tough sons of bitches. Too-Tall is essential for a victory.

In the illustration for this page, Brother and Ferdy walk past Too-Tall on the sidewalk, who doesn't even seem to notice them. He looks sad and the word GLOOM is written above his head. This feels out of character to me. I mean, Too-Tall must have expected some kind of punishment for his harsh treatment of Ferdy. Did he actually think he was going to get away with the dodgeball thing? Did he expect to not receive so harsh a punishment as a suspension. Maybe I just don't understand. I was never a bully in elementary school, I just kind of assumed they always went with whatever came to them in terms of punishment, since obviously a punishment was to be expected considering their behavior. Ah, what do I know?

Ferdy, for once in his life, decides he ought to do something nice, and offers to help Brother out. Even though Ferdy doesn't like Too-Tall at all, he doesn't want the whole football team to suffer for something that's really only between Too-Tall and Ferdy, and he offers to talk the principal into letting Too-Tall play in the upcoming game.

He also admits that he was wrong about Queenie. In fact, he had overheard her insult Too-Tall for getting suspended and missing the game (not for hurting Ferdy in the dodgeball game), and that's when he realized just how messed up she was. Even a smart guy has to learn eventually to realize he makes mistakes, huh?

Hey, maybe Queenie's attitude with him is the real reason why Too-Tall's so gloomy. Personally, I don't think he should bother paying any attention to her opinion.

While Brother appreciates Ferdy's help with Too-Tall, he points out that there is one other big hurdle in the game against Bruin City. Their squad is much bigger than Bear Country's and have plenty more extra players. Bear Country will wear down quicker. Ferdy, still wanting to help, but not sure what to do yet, asks to review Brother's football rulebook for the night. Maybe he'll find something that can help give Bear Country the edge.

The next day, Ferdy shows up to football practice and asks to speak. Ha, that's got to be a funny sight. Too-Tall is there teasing Ferdy, so obviously Ferdy succeeded in getting him back on the team. The coach, Coach Grizzmeyer, although very surprised, let's him talk.

Ferdy suggests that by running a no-huddle offense through the whole game, Bruin City will not have a chance to swap out its players. Their larger squad will be a useless advantage, evening the playing field. It's a wild suggestion, but it works. The Bear Country Cousins (seriously, they're called the Cousins) defeat the Bruin City Bulldogs 21 to 14. Too-Tall even makes the winning catch from a Brother Bear pass. Too-Tall, at least for this game, decides to show Ferdy a little respect. He waves Ferdy down from the bleachers onto the field and lifts him onto his shoulders.

Protip: Too-Tall's goes right back to being mean to Ferdy in later books.

Nerdy Nephew, as I said earlier, feels way too formula. A new kid in town has trouble fitting but eventually learns to get along with everyone, even the school bully. That's really all it is. This could have been shortened and published in the First Time series. It doesn't help that Ferdy is hard to like. I know he's supposed to be having trouble getting along with people, but he's a total punk. Even after Mama's little lesson about cubs who have trouble fitting in, you still don't really buy that Ferdy could be that bad because he's socially inept. Even Brother seems uncertain, that's why he asks Papa for a second opinion.

But is there any worthwhile lesson for kids to take away from it? I think Stan and Jan were going for, "give even really stuck-up and mean kids a chance," which is a lesson I don't think is guaranteed to work. If kids are stuck-up and mean, then they should be ignored. They have to learn that such behavior won't get them any friends, and in sometimes may even get them enemies. Maybe in a few cases, persevering niceness can eventually get someone to lighten up, but Ferdy is so unique I can't imagine what happens in this book can be applied by a child to the real world. How often can it be that a kid who is the son and nephew of rich scientists, having been tutored by them well beyond the level of a kid his age in public school, and having never been to a public school in his life, will suddenly be thrust into your school and into your class? A kid like that would be going to a private school somewhere, definitely.

In the beginning of the book Ferdy's a punk. I wouldn't be friends with him. He doesn't turn nice until he saves Papa Bear from quick sand. That, at least, could be a lesson to kids who reading this book who are just like Ferdy. Do something remarkable and win everyone's admiration. Good luck with that.

The Berenstain Bears Gotta Dance!

BROTHER BEAR AFRAID TO DANCE?
"No, dancing is just dumb," he says. But when Brother hears that Bonnie Brown may go to the big spring dance with Too-Tall Grizzly, he wonders if a dance-floor klutz can become a disco dynamo in less than a week.

Something tells me that Bonnie isn't really looking for a disco dynamo. But this is Bear Country, maybe their universe is a couple of decades behind ours.

The Berenestain Bears Gotta Dance! is another Brother-centric book, and it's specifically a Brother-being-pathetic-centric book, kind of like New Girl in Town. Actually, Gotta Dance! is like a direct sequel to New Girl in Town. I don't think that's ever been done in Berenstain Bears before. The Big Chapter books will have some more continuity and story arcing and throwbacks than the other Berenstain Bear books.

Here's the story sting:

Before Brother knew it, Bonnie had him on the dance floor. A huge crowd of cubs made a circle around them. They were clapping and shouting, "Brother's gotta dance! Brother's gotta dance!"
Then the music started, and Bonnie was dancing like crazy. Brother tried to pick up the beat BUT HE COULDN'T MOVE HIS FEET! They were stuck to the floor! The music pounded in his ears. The crowd shouted, "Gotta dance! Gotta dance!"

Did you ever, as a child, have to endure such a fate? Being forced to dance? Stan and Jan make it sound as horrifying as it really is.

The summary on the copyright page says, "With the help of Sister's ballet teacher, Brother Bear conquers his fear of dancing and can ask his favorite girl cub to the school dance." In my experience, though, a fear of dancing isn't a fear of actual dancing, but a fear of looking like a total loser. But as we know from New Girl in Town, that's the kind of thing Bonnie goes for, so Brother should actually be eager to dance.

The book begins with Brother boring the hell out of Sister, talking about softball and basketball. Specifically, how good he is at both. Sister tries to get him to shut up by mentioning the party she will got to at Lizzy Bruin's house, and all of the dancing that will go on. Brother says, "Great, Sis. Wiggle and jump around to dopey music all night. What a stupid thing to do." Sounds harsh, but when you take into account the wholly stupid-looking dance move Sister is showing off in the illustration, you want to give Brother a break. Also, when you take into account that dance music these days really is pretty dopey (OOM-TS OOM-TS OOM-TS OOM-TS) you want to give Brother a further break.

Sister doesn't like his attitude, and fights back by mentioning the rumor that Bonnie wants to go with Too-Tall to the Spring Dance. Even though Brother made perfectly clear he did not need a girlfriend in the last book, his reaction to this rumor is not a happy one. The fact that he despises T00-Tall doesn't help him feel better. Brother realizes that he's been thinking about Bonnie a lot, and would like to be more than just friends with her.

Oh, God damn it, Brother. In the very previous book you were going on about how you needed a friend more than a girlfriend. You went on about how going steady with Bonnie didn't seem as nice when you didn't have the Bear/Grizzly feud getting in the way. Now that you get a slap in the face regarding the fact that you don't like to dance, suddenly you want to win her heart. What do you want, Brother? What do you want?

Actually, it says right there in the text, "He wanted to go to the movies with her, to the Burger Bear, and to dances... Dances that was the real problem." See, Brother can't dance, and he worries that he always looks silly when he tries, and the sillier he feels, the worse he gets, and even though not being able dance is a great excuse for turning down invitations to parties from girls he doesn't like, it doesn't do him much good when Bonnie is a terrific dancer.

Too-Tall is the exact opposite of Brother. Brother is a nice young boy who can't dance, and Too-Tall is a big jerk who's a dancing machine. As much as he knows Bonnie doesn't like Too-Tall, Brother can imagine she would want to dance with him.

When Brother and Sister get home, Sister offers to give him some dancing tips, 'cause she knows he'd want to learn and impress Bonnie. Brother turns her down, the idea of learning to dance from his Sister is too humiliating. He says he doesn't even care that Bonnie would like to dance with Too-Tall. She doesn't buy it.

"If you say so," said Sister. "But I can just see old Too-Tall doing the Swivel with Bonnie. And let me tell you," she said, pretending to see something awful. "it's not a pretty sight."

Papa is just sitting there listening to his daughter say things like that. He doesn't pay much attention, because he decides he's going to teach Brother some dancing. He looks up ballroom dancing in the encyclopedia and sets forth to teach Brother the Box Step. Sister derides him for choosing a "prehistoric" dance, but Papa insists it's the best start. Papa then commences the dance lesson.

The size difference between Papa and Brother causes some difficulty, and leads to one of my favorite passages in a Berenstain Bear book ever:

Mama came in from the kitchen. She looked at Papa and Brother with raised eyebrows.
"ONE-two-three-four, ONE-two-three-four," shouted Papa. "I'm teaching him the Box Step." He was pushing Brother around the living room the way a bulldozer might push a load of gravel around an unfinished parking lot.

If that's how Papa dances Brother is probably in mortal danger.

The next day is Saturday and Sister has ballet class. She takes lessons from Madame Bearishnikov at the Bear Country Mall. Mama can't take Sister because she's too busy making pancakes (really) so she asks Brother to take her. Sister can't go by herself because it's too dangerous with Too-Tall and his gang around.

I know Too-Tall and his gang got busted recently for selling drugs, but clearly all of that has been forgiven by now, and otherwise, I haven't seen Too-Tall or any of the gang members cause anyone any actual harm. The worst Too-Tall ever did to Sister was steal her jump-rope, and what kind of big fucking deal is that, anyway? Besides, Brother is definitely Too-Tall's favorite target, not Sister. It probably puts her in more danger to have Brother accompany her than go by herself.

Brother even asks Sister if Too-Tall is really bothering her, and she replies that he and the gang hop around outside the ballet center and say, "Look, Ma! I'm da-a-a-ancin'!"

Mama's right, that's dangerous.

Brother clearly doesn't want to go, but Sister slips out that Bonnie also takes lessons from Madame Bearishnikov, and now Brother can't wait to get his ass out the door. As they walk, Brother thinks about the dream he had the night before. Bonnie invited him onto a dance floor with other cubs watching, but his feet literally stuck to the floor. He tried to lift them and sections of the floor came up with them. Bonnie looked at him like he was a creep, and then left to dance with Too-Tall.

It was such a frightening nightmare, but Brother worries that even if he does get some help, he's too far behind anyone else for it to do any good. He relegates himself to forever being a dancing doofus. He sheepishly asks Sister if many cubs are going to the Spring Dance, and she says everyone who's anyone will go, except for her stubborn Brother.

By the way, Sister tells him that she's going to the dance with cousin Freddy. Brother thinks that's weird, but Sister points out they aren't going to get married, just dance together. It may not be so weird if you put it that way, but I wonder if Freddy doesn't think it's the least bit pathetic of him to go to a dance with his younger cousin. If I went to a dance with a younger cousin, I would definitely feel like a loser. Maybe Freddy thinks it's better to be a loser who goes to a dance with his cousin than be a loser who does not go to the dance at all like his other cousin. Which means that Brother is a loser among losers.

They get to the fitness center and there be Too-Tall and his gang ostensibly teasing the other cubs but really just making fools of themselves. They prance and twirl and say, "Look, Ma! We're da-a-a-ancin'!" The ballet students actually giggle at them. When Bonnie shows up, though, Too-Tall tells the gang to cut it out and he tries to make nice with her.

"Too-Tall, you're impossible," she says. He replies, "I try to be, little lady. I try to be." What kind of a bully talks like that?

When Brother and Sister walk by, Too-Tall takes the opportunity tease Brother for wanting to learn ballet. Skuzz blocks the door, and Brother threatens to rearrange his face. No really, Brother actually says that: "I'll rearrange your face."

After more teasing from Too-Tall, Skuzz steps aside and let's Brother and Sister in. Brother probably thought that being teased by the most infamous bully cub in Bear Country is about as embarrassing as walking into a ballet class would get, but that's 100% wrong. He's about to get a lot more embarrassed.

As Sister prepares for the class, she tries to cheer Brother up. She tells him to just ignore the teasing, but he can't ignore what's about to happen next.

Madame Bearishnikov arrives and sees Brother, and she's please. The recital that the class is preparing to put on needs a few catches, lifts, and carries to really be complete. They need a male to perform these things, but the class has no boys in it. Now here's Brother, and Madame B is so excited she gets the whole class to break out into applause for him.

But Brother's not there to dance, he's just there because Mama made him protect Sister from the most non-threatening bully in existence. He tries to stammer his way through this explanation, and the once pleased Madame Bearishnikov transforms into Madame Bitchishnikov. She circles around Brother, pokes at him, and declares him a puny chicken.

"Yes. This is a puny chicken, with rubbery arms, wobbly legs, and muscles of Jell-O. Such a creature could never do the cathces, lifts, and carries that a male dancer must do. Why, a strong wind would blow him away. Poof!"

This pisses Brother off, and he demands a chance to prove himself. Madame B agrees. Brother looks around for Bonnie for the reassurance that she's about to see how awesome he is, but she's not there. This will prove to be a good thing, trust me.

Madame B tells Sister to leap into Brother's arms so he can prove that he can do a simple catch. Sister, who just a minute earlier told Brother not to let himself be embarrassed by Too-Tall's teasing, gladly accepts to the opportunity to utterly humiliate him in front of a number of girls. Or maybe she thinks he can actually do it. After all, in the previous book, he caught Bonnie as she fell from Cousin Freddy's craptastic crumbling balcony. Surely, if Sister leaps into his arms from floor level, he can catch her.

She runs, she leaps, and he falls over onto his butt. I'm sorry, tin can.

The girls laugh at him, and Madame B smirks so hard she should be in Too-Tall's gang. "Well, Brother," she says, "I think you have given us all a good idea of what you can and can't do." Brother sulks into another room to wait for the class to end. He peeks through the window in the door and notices Bonnie come in. He takes small solace in the fact that she didn't see any of the episode.

Brother turns and notices that he walked into a weight room, and decides, what the heck, why not work out while he waits? When the class is over, despite having the self-esteem kicked out of him earlier, he feels good. In fact, he takes Sister to each subsequent ballet practice, so he can have the weight room all to himself. Still, going to the Madame B's center means having to see Too-Tall try to buddy up with Bonnie, and that reminds him of his whole can't-dance-for-shit problem.

That's when this little passage pops up, "He knew he should do something about it. But what could he do except feel sorry for himself?" Are you kidding me? Brother can't be that pathetic. He can't be such a loser that feeling sorry for himself is the only option he considers. Just learn to dance, you little punk. There's a ballet teacher right there. You don't have to learn to prance around on your toes but she's got to be able to give you some pointers on at least keeping the damn beat.

The next scene really grinds my gears, too. Madame B walks into the weight room while Brother is exercising, to try to ask him again to at least learn enough ballet to play a part in the upcoming performance. Brother turns her down, and says it's not because he's embarrassed to be a boy dancing ballet, but that he has too much on his mind to handle learning ballet. Somehow, Madame B figures that it's a problem "of the heart" and lets it go. What? Earlier, when Brother was just plain not interested, she happily berated him for being a puny wimp and convinced Sister to help humiliate him in front of all the ballet students. Now that he's got a problem of the heart, she accepts that and lets it go? And I can't stand Brother for continuing to be polite to Madame B when he should call her out on that bullshit.

So, there's a week until the dance, and Brother, despite probably being a certifiable hunk by this point, goes to the pile of rocks that he dubs his thinking place and mopes around. He knows he has to learn to dance if he wants Bonnie to go the Spring Dance with him and not Too-Tall, but he only has a week. He's about to give up when Bonnie appears.

"I thought I would would find you in your Sulking—I mean, Thinking—Place," she says. You know, twice now, Brother has fled to this thinking place, and twice now he hasn't come up with any solution to his problems, and twice now Bonnie has arrived to set things right. This Thinking Place is actually a Make Bonnie Show Up and Save the Day Place.

And save it she does. She reveals that she started the rumor about her going to the dance with Too-Tall. She overestimated Brother's resolve, and thought that the rumor would inspire him to learn to dance so that she could as him to the Spring Dance, not Too-Tall. But instead of being inspired to dance, Brother just got all sad and sulky. But, Brother asks, if she's not going to the dance with Too-Tall or Brother, then who with?

"You just don't get it, do you? I'm not going to the dance at all." Brother's really at the top of his pathetic game on this one. He actually tells Bonnie to go to the dance with Too-Tall because they are both so good that they will surely win the dancing prize; he can't get it through his head that she just plain doesn't like Too-Tall. Now he feels guilty that she won't go to the dance.

Bonnie tells Brother that she'd rather hang out with him than go to the dance. They can go to a movie, or to the mall, or whatever, she says. He doesn't know how to respond to that, and Bonnie just tells him to walk her home, which he does, but remarkably he does not feel any better about the situation. He feels guilty about Bonnie's skipping the dance. Brother, she just said she wanted to spend the evening with you. Just show her a good time, for crying out loud. Take her to that movie, buy her dinner, tell her how much you like her, have a long walk on the beach hand-in-hand, have the night of your life. And then after, learn to dance, so that when the next Spring Dance comes along, you can have shown her that wonderful night, and then dance with her the next opportunity.

But this is Berenstain Bear land, and it's not going to work that way. Something much more sitcom is in store for us. And I mean that. The rest of this book is a sitcom plot.

By this point, even Sister has had enough of Brother's shenanigans. She decides he's a lost cause and focuses on her own ballet and Cousin Freddy-related dancing. But then, she casually mentions that Madame Bearishnikov is the judge at the Spring Dance. Brother asks how a ballet expert could judge pop dancing. Sister says Madame B is a connoisseur of all dancing types. That's when she gets a brilliant idea. She tells Madame B all about this brilliant idea.

The next day, during ballet practice, Madame B goes into the weight room to give Brother a proposition. If he learns a few ballet moves, only the ones necessary for the recital, she'll teach him some good pop moves in time for the Spring Dance. They'll even do it in private. Brother agrees. They're going to have a crash course in dancing. Clearly, this is what Sister's plan was, and clearly, Brother should have just asked Madame B for help from the very beginning.

He excitedly tells Sister and Bonnie, who know everything already, the good news, and they get to practicing. Brother is so nervous about his one-on-one in the weight room with Madame B, he asks her to put a poster up over the window in the door. No one shall see him learn to dance. The practices go well, though, and Brother is confident he can hold his own on a dance floor.

One day, Brother, Sister, and Bonnie find Too-Tall and his gang outside the door after practice. Even though this is not a regular practice day, Too-Tall somehow got wind that they were there. Too-Tall, as it turns out, really did think Bonnie was going to invite him to the Spring Dance, and with so little time left and still not being invited, he's come by to be a jerk. "Come on, baby," he says as they walk by, "I'll show you how to do the Snake."

But clearly, Brother, with his new muscles, was eagerly waiting for the chance to show off. He grabs Too-Tall, wrestles with him, twists him up, hauls him over his head, and tosses him into a Dumpster, a Dumpster placed right next to the fitness center. Then he walks away with Sister on one arm and Bonnie on the other. Too-Tall watches helplessly, angrily, and shocked.

The ballet recital is held on the same night as the Spring Dance, coming on first. It's a hit. Sister's a hit, Brother's a hit, everyone applauds, and Brother, for once, doesn't make a fool out of himself trying to dance. Immediately after it's over, the floor is cleared so that the Spring Dance can commence. While that happens, Too-Tall, who knows that Brother never locks his locker in the gym locker room, sneaks in with a box. He finds Brother's locker, opens it up, and sprinkles the contents of the box into something in Brother's locker. The book never explicitly mentions what's going on at first, but it's clear that Too-Tall just put itching powder into Brother's underwear.

Brother walks in and changes clothes. Clearly, this is slow-working itching powder, because Brother is able to get dressed, walk back to the gym, and dance with Bonnie for a while before the itching starts.

Queenie can't help but rib Too-Tall a little about his Dumpster escapade. "Where did you disappear to, before?" she asks. "I thought maybe you dumped me the way a certain someone dumped you in the mall Dumpster." Too-Tall doesn't mind the joke. He's busy watching Brother with anticipation. Soon enough, Brother gets an uncomfortable feeling, and he starts doing a peculiar new dance. That's when Too-Tall tells Queenie what he was up to: "I put itching powder in Brother's shorts!" Yeah, it says shorts even though Brother is wearing long pants in the illustration, so it's probably a euphemism for boxer shorts.

Brother is wiggling and twisting and doing all sorts of ridiculous things, but the other cubs get into it; they think he's in the process of inventing a wild new dance. He finally drops to the floor in exhaustion, and Madame B decides to award him Most Original Step. Bonnie gets Best Dancer. When Madame B asks Brother, still on the floor, what his new dance is called, he's too out of breath to answer, so he pulls Bonnie down and whispers it into her ear. Then he jumps up onto his feet and races into the locker room.

The narration switches gears a little, and starts narrating like all of this happened decades ago.

That dance of Brother's was quite a performance. To this day, they still talk about it in Bear Country. And even though Brother became a very good dancer, he never again danced the way he did that afternoon. Only a small number of his friends—and enemies—know what came over Brother that day.

Brother ran into the locker room to take a shower. He named the dance The Itch, and the name was even stenciled onto a trophy and put into a case outside of the principal's office. And that's how the book ends.

Gotta Dance! is not my favorite. Brother's behavior is so frustrating. He's such a pathetic little son of gun, and his actions are inconsistent here from the way they were in the previous book. He made such a big deal out of only being friends with Bonnie before, but in this book, clearly that doesn't mean squat. He doesn't even really try to solve any of his problems. He just gets mopey and sad and has to wait for someone else, either Bonnie or Sister to bail him out of it.

I don't think there are many good lessons for kids to take away from Gotta Dance! Brother gets over his sour grapes and fears about dancing, yes, but his method is so moronic, and he takes no initiative. I also don't like that scene where Madame B chooses to embarrass him simply because he's not interested in ballet. It's too cruel. Also, Bonnie was nice, and told him that he didn't have to dance, and they could still hang out. That would have been a fine way to resolve the issue, but then this sitcom plot about trading pop dance lessons for ballet lessons and Too-Tall and itching powder really just ruins it. It's not that good a book, neither for kids or for nostalgic adults.

Sorry for the "Bitchishnikov." I couldn't resist.

The Berenstain Bears and the New Girl in Town

BROTHER BEAR IN LOVE?
Just yesterday he hated girls. Now he can’t take his eyes off Bonnie Brown. And she thinks he’s pretty cute too! But she’s a Grizzly and he’s a Bear. Will the old feud between the two clans keep the young lovers apart?

So is the plot of The Berenstain Bears and the New Girl in Town. Guess who the “new girl in town” is. Yes, it’s Bonnie Brown.

I’m 99% sure that grizzlies are bears. However, Wikipedia says that grizzlies live mostly in Canada, so maybe the “old feud between the two clans” is a metaphor for the old feud between the United States and Canada. Maybe.

Or maybe not. By clearly delineating Grizzlies and Bears, Stan and Jan have introduced the element of race relations into the Berenstain Bear mythos. A year after this book was published, Stan and Jan published The Berenstain Bears’ New Neighbors, which I have not read, but the cover features the Bear family watching a family of Giant Pandas move in next door, and I strongly suspect that the Giant Pandas are meant to be Asian. Possibly Chinese. I guess that means that Bears are white and Grizzlies are black. And Polar Bears, Eskimos.

I don’t recall seeing Bonnie Brown in the First Time books, so I think this titular new girl in town is the first major character to be introduced in the Big Chapter books. If she’s a Grizzly, and Grizzlies represent black people, does that mean Brother can never go back?

The story sting on the front page goes like this:

“I guess we’re going to kiss,” said Brother.
They kissed.
Brother blushed.
They kissed again.
Brother blushed again.
They kissed again and again and again…

The illustration is actually three small illustrations showing Brother and Bonnie kissing. Each time, Brother is blushing and getting hot under the collar, and each time Bonnie looks more and more annoyed. She even crosses her arms while kissing him the third time.

The summary on the copyright page says, “Brother Bear’s budding romance with Squire Grizzly’s niece helps bring about an end to the fierce feud between the Grizzly and Bear clans. The same feud that the back cover blurb mentioned? The summary just gave away the ending.

The story begins by hitting us over the head with the fact that it’s spring. There are flowers and birds and boys and girls walking hand in hand. Yes, somehow spring makes children fall in love with each other. Brother, being a boy his age, finds all the love disgusting, as does Cousin Freddy. Sister, however, is so happy she starts singing:

“In the spring
a young bear’s fancy
lightly turns to thoughts of love.”

Some Berenstain Bear fans might recognize those lyrics. They were used in the song that played at the beginning of the old Valentine’s Day Berenstain Bears TV special, The Berenstain Bears and Cupid’s Surprise. Brother and Freddy, though, don’t appreciate the shoutout. “Beeswax,” and “double beeswax,” they say.

Sister teases that the boys are afraid of girls. Noticeably, Freddy does not argue, but Brother rejects the idea of being afraid, and says that some of his best friends are girls. That’s when a girl named Babs Bruno walks up, and in an insufferably sweet way, asks Brother to help her with her homework. Brother nervously agrees to call her in the evening.

Babs isn’t the only girl cub interested in a boy. Sister, Brother, and Freddy notice Queenie McBear walking arm in arm with Too-Tall Grizzly. They have an on-again off-again relationship, and right now it’s really on.

“Suddenly, a strange and disturbing thing happened,” the narration tells. Too-Tall’s father, Two-Ton, drives up next to the cubs in his pickup truck, snatches Too-Tall up, shouts something at Queenie, and drives away. When Brother, Sister, and Freddy ask Queenie what happened, she explains that Two-Ton said something unusual: “It wasn’t right for a member of the Grizzly clan to be seen with a member of the Bear clan.” Racism!

But the cubs forget all about this shocking display of prejudice, because at the beginning of the very next chapter, Sister goes right back to teasing Brother about his popularity with the ladies. The Bear family is lounging in the living room. “Mama was sewing and Papa was resting in his easy chair,” the narration says, even though the illustration clearly shows Mama knitting. Papa gives the boy a little ribbing before the phone rings. It’s Babs.

Although he’s embarrassed, Brother does his best to actually discuss the homework.

Brother grabbed his homework and returned to the phone. “Number one… let’s see… the answer is forty-two. Yeah, you use length times width—that’s the formula for the area of a rectangle. Do I know the formula for WHAT? For a HEART?”

Romance with the power of math.

Brother insists that Babs is even better at formulas than he is, and hangs up. Papa can’t help kidding Brother, but his jovial attitude quickly turns sour when he takes a sip from his newly poured glass of milk. He spits it out in disgust. “Onions!” he yells. His milk tastes like onions.

How does milk become onion milk? Papa has already heard the tale at Zeb’s hardware. There is a clover meadow between Farmer Ben’s farm and the estate of Squire Grizzly. I don’t know how common it is to find farms right next to palatial mansions, but there you have it. Usually, Farmer Ben grazes his cows there because his own land has onion grass on it, but Squire Grizzly has recently maintained that the clover meadow is Grizzly territory, and has erected a fence around it, cutting it off from Farmer Ben’s cows. “He says no member of the Bear clan has any right to it,” Papa explains.

Papa and Mama explain to the cubs that all of this animosity is a result of an ancient feud between the Bear family and the Grizzly family. Now this is confusing. The Bear family is the Bears, right? Mama Papa Sister Brother. Are they related to Farmer Ben? Does the whole of Bear Country belong to only two families? Is everyone the product of inbreeding, like royalty? Or does everyone in Bear Country pledge allegiance to one family or the other? Oy.

The Bear and Grizzly families, Mama and Papa explain, were some of the first settlers of Bear Country, and they did not like each other in the least. Brother and Sister are the great-great-great-grandcubs of Ebenezer Bear himself. Ebenezer always got into spats with old Abner Grizzly, fighting over pasture, boundaries, water, and even what to name the place. Clearly, the Bears won that fight. Pretty soon, even a war was fought, with Ulysses S. Bear leading the Bears and Stonewall Grizzly leading the Grizzlies.

I don’t know what to think of the Bear Country equivalent of the Civil War being a big family feud. It just makes it more confusing. Was I right? Everyone in Bear Country belongs to the same two families? Can you tell the difference between a Bear and a Grizzly just by looking at them? I don’t get it. I think I’m going to stick to treating them as two distinct races, just to make it easier.

Anyway, the feud was fierce, but everyone got over it eventually. In fact, no one knows how it started, proving just how silly the whole thing was. Mama and Papa trust that things won’t get out of hand. In fact, Papa is currently employed by Squire Grizzly to refinish some antique wooden furniture. Cue a phone call from Squire Grizzly calling the whole thing off. He shouts a few things through the phone at Papa, and Papa retorts, “Well that goes double for you and all the members of the Grizzly clan! … you… you… you MILK POISONER!”

Yeah, that’ll teach him, Papa.

Brother and Sister, for some reason, wait only until now to tell their parents about the Too-Tall incident. The feud has spread. Papa proclaims they will boycott all Grizzly businesses, including taking all of their money out of the Great Grizzly National Bank. He gets in the car and drives off to rally other Bears to the cause. Unfortunately, the tank is almost empty, and all of the gas stations in the area are owned by Squire Grizzly. In a time before the ubiquity of cell phones, Papa has to walk six miles to a phone to call Farmer Ben to bring him some gas.

The next day, Brother and Sister are eager to get to school, away from what they perceive as a silly grown-up problem. To their shock, though, the feud has trickled down. Cubs are fighting on the playground before school, even Too-Tall and Queenie. I guess there are too many parents like Papa in Bear Country.

In the illustration for this scene, I’ve noticed that all of the female cubs wear some form of head decoration. Ribbon, bow, headband, whatever. Thank goodness for head gear to provide some secondary sexual characteristics among bears.

And speaking of secondary sexual characteristics, all the fighting on the playground stops when one of Squire Grizzly’s limousines pulls up and deposits a pretty young female cub. “That’s Squire Grizzly’s niece, Bonnie Brown!” a well informed cub proclaims. She’s cute! She lives in a mansion! She’s a model! She’s Bonnie Brown, and she’s doing something funny to Brother.

As Brother Bear watched her, a funny feeling started in his scalp. It ran along his spine, then all the way down to the tips of his toes. Sister was about to ask him what he thought of the new girl in town. But one look at his love-struck face gave her the answer.

Brother’s infatuation with the new girl continues all the way through the homework review. When Teacher Bob asks him if he knows what shape the length times width formula finds the area for, Brother answers, “A heart,” making the rest of the class roar with laughter. Bonnie even gives Brother a friendly smile. Only in books does the girl seem to like best the boy who makes a fool out of himself. I wish being a buffoon scored me women.

At recess, during a game of fistball, Brother notices Babs Bruno watching from the sidelines, and it makes him uneasy. “Stop worrying,” says Cousin Freddy. “You know she has a crush on you. She probably just wants to moon at you while you get a hit.”

Is there a difference between mooning you and mooning at you? I hope there is.

But whichever the case may be, Freddy is wrong. Babs and a couple of her friends have shown up only to tease Brother. They begin shouting things like “Brother’s in love!” and “Brother’s got a girlfriend!”

I don’t understand this. At the beginning of the book, we saw cubs all over the place holding hands and getting touchy-feely with the opposite sexes, even Too-Tall. Now Brother has shown honest interest in a girl and they’re giving him shit for it. Are Stan and Jan just invoking typical child cruelty? Or were those earlier displays of affection totally insincere, and are they teasing Brother because they know he is?

Brother probably doesn’t care either way, because he escapes through a hole in the fence and runs to a pile of rocks in the woods. It’s his thinking place, just like in Winnie the Pooh. He doesn’t appear to do much thinking, though. Instead he sits there and mopes.

But there’s a cub coming to his rescue, and it’s Bonnie Brown. She saw the whole thing, she says, and can’t help but feel responsible. “But it’s not your fault you’re so… cute,” Brother sheepily tells her, to her delight. Bonnie suggests that Brother act nonchalant when the other cubs tease him; that he should “top them.” When he asks how, she says he can beat the teasing about having a girlfriend by actually having a girlfriend, and nominates herself as the sole candidate.

I’m having a bit of a hard time believing that Brother’s act-all-mopey-and-pathetic shtick can really win a girl’s affection. Oh well, this is only the Berenstain Bears.

Bonnie offers to walk back to the playground with Brother holding hands, and even tells him she thinks he’s cute too. Then, she lands a peck on his cheek, and he blushes the hell out of the red color spectrum. This leads to one of the silliest-looking illustrations ever seen in a Berenstain Bears book. Trust me on that one.

I want to mention that Bonnie’s secondary sexual headgear is a bandana. I guess it could have been meant to be a ribbon, but it looks a like Rambo-style bandana. She looks like she should be lugging a huge machine gun around.

The teasing doesn’t stop for Brother, but somehow walking around holding hands with an incredibly cute girl numbs the effect. He even walks Bonnie home, and I have to say that the illustration for the scene is adorable. As they walk, Bonnie, who has a little bit of acting experience, asks Brother about the spring school play coming up. He gives her a rundown of the plays they usually perform, and they all have Berenstain Bearified names: Robin Hood and his Merry Bears, Grizzlystiltskin and the straw of Gold, King Arthur and the Bears of the Round Table, Indiana Bear and the Temple of Doom. I made that last one up.

Bonnie and her parents live with the Squire in his mansion, which is so big Brother actually seems a little afraid to go in. A servant greets Bonnie at the door, and while he has misgivings about Brother entering, he lets them go in. Even the entrance hall impresses Brother, and Squire Grizzly himself quickly appears at the top of the stairs, dressed like he’s ready to ride a horse. He seems jolly enough, and doesn’t even recognize brother as a Bear, but when Bonnie introduces him, the Squire goes nuts. “Called me a milk poisoner, his father did!”

Wow, I guess Papa really knew how to insult the guy after all.

Bonnie begs her uncle to calm down, but the Squire chases Brother right out the front door, and even as Bonnie cries out to Brother not to go, he’s scared as hell. As he runs the path to the gate, though, Bonnie appears on a balcony of the mansion, pleading one more time for Brother not to leave.

I’m getting a real Romeo and Juliet vibe from this book so far. Two star-crossed lovers whose own families are at each other’s throats, complete with balconies even.

Bonnie plucks a flower from a vine growing on the balcony and tosses it to Brother, who promptly takes it home and stares at it longingly.

But Brother is angry with Squire Grizzly, so angry he admits everything to Sister. And Sister, with remarkable clarity for someone her age, seems to get that Brother and Bonnie only wanted to be friends until Squire Grizzly forbade Brother from seeing her, and that makes him want to “go steady.”

Sister explains this to Mama, who is more surprised at Brother’s turnaround from “love is disgusting” to “Oh Bonnie” than anything else. Papa takes the news about Brother’s newfound romance less well. He takes the opportunity to insult the Squire a few, but Mama interjects that Brother’s crush on Bonnie is a good thing, as it will help him get over his shyness toward girls.

Not that I approve of Papa’s prejudices, but I think Mama should have been smart enough to know that argument wasn’t going to mean squat. Imagine it’s 1961 in Atlanta, and there’s a boy who’s in love with a girl of a different race, and his racist father is very upset. Do you think if the boy’s mother said, “Wait, don’t get mad, this will help him get over his shyness toward girls,” the father would change his mind? I’m of the NO opinion on that one.

Brother walks into the room all sweet and innocent, but no one has a chance to confront him about Bonnie, because the sounds of a bulldozer being revved up come through the window. Angry shouting and police sirens enter the mix as well. The Bear family runs outside to find that Farmer Ben just bulldozed down the Squire’s fence around the clover meadow. Talk about fighting the power. Squire Grizzly climbs up onto the bulldozer and starts whipping Ben with his riding crop (he carries that thing everywhere). Mrs. Ben, brandishing a hoe, tries to poke the Squire off. The Squire’s wife, “all dressed up for afternoon tea, was shaking her parasol at Mrs. Ben.” I can just imagine Squire Grizzly thinking, “Dear, you are 100 percent useless.”

Chief Bruno and Officer Marguerite arrive and manage to break up the fight, and the Bens and Grizzlies eventually simmer down and go back to their homes. The book doesn’t say, but they probably went to small claims court.

The feud is in full swing. All around Bear Country, people who used to be nice and friendly with each other are now getting into shouting matches. Biff Bruin’s pharmacy does not allow Grizzly clan members. Ralph Ripoff is going door to door selling buttons with Bear and Grizzly pride slogans (what does that make him?).

Despite all of this, the cubs in Bear Country School have gotten over all of their differences. Now that I think about it, all of the bickering among the cubs stopped when they started teasing Brother about his crush on Bonnie. Maybe if Brother and Bonnie go into town and start being lovey-dovey, the feud will end. Sure, it won’t work for Papa Bear and Squire Grizzly, but they’ll still get about 99 percent of the way there.

Wait, wasn’t there something about a spring play coming up? Oh yeah, there was, and now the cubs in Teacher Bob’s drama club are brainstorming. First of all, what play should they put on? Too-Tall suggests Robin Hood and his Merry Bears, with his sights set on playing Robin Hood himself. Too-Tall as Robin Hood, let that one sink in a while. Or Too-Tall in the drama club, for that matter.

Teacher Bob has his own agenda, though. He points out the obvious fact that a vicious feud is ripping its way through Bear Country, and then brandishes a large book called The Plays of William Shakesbeare. Yes, Shakesbeare. There is even a picture of him on the wall, and I have to admit, if William Shakespeare was a bear, he’d probably look like the picture.

The cubs think Shakesbeare is boring, although they know nothing about his plays. Teacher Bob names the play Romeo and Juliet, and he tells them, no, this one’s not boring at all. It’s about two young lovers.

“That sounds like two cubs we know!” Babs says. Brother blushes. Too-Tall starts smacking the back of his hand going, “I love you! I love you!” which I guess he intends to be insulting towards Brother, but I think he’s just making a fool out of himself.

Brother gets mad at Too-Tall, and threatens to knock him on his “big tin can.” Well, no one ever said Bear Country was known for its great euphemisms. Teacher Bob, though, calms everyone down, and gets back to how exciting Romeo and Juliet is. There are swordfights, poison, and death in the play, all because of a feud between two families. Maybe, he suggests, putting on a play where everyone dies will depress everyone out of the feud. It sounds like a good plan to me.

So the cubs decide to put on Romeo and Juliet. Tryouts for Juliet are first, and guess what? Bonnie gets the part! That means that, despite being really embarrassed by the idea of playing Romeo to Bonnie’s Juliet, Brother has got to try out for the part, because the idea of anyone else playing Romeo to Bonnie’s Juliet is worse. By the way, that’s not me being snarky, that’s exactly what it says in the narration.

Brother’s reading is pretty bad, but Teacher Bob gives him the part because he knows that’s what everyone wants. Again, that’s what the narration says.

Cousin Freddy ends up being in charge of set design and stage manager. He gets so into it, he even builds Juliet’s balcony himself. Unfortunately he sucks at his job. When they first rehearse the balcony scene, the balcony breaks as soon as Bonnie sets foot on it. The line, “Romeo, Romeo,” turns into a cry for help as she goes tumbling down to the stage floor. But as luck would have it, she lands right in Brother’s arms. That’s the way Shakespeare should have written it, I think. Juliet’s balcony should have collapsed under her, depositing her into Romeo’s arms, and splinters for everyone.

Cousin Freddy is certain he’ll get it right next time, but there’s still one tiny problem. There is a scene in which Romeo and Juliet kiss, and every time Brother kisses Bonnie, he blushes. It makes a pivotal scene come off as farce, and Teacher Bob is worried. If Romeo and Juliet makes everyone laugh, the parents watching the play won’t learn their lesson.

Bonnie assures Brother she has a plan to solve this, and they agree to meet at his favorite pile of rocks. What’s Bonnie’s plan? Simple, they just keep kissing until he gets used to it. Brother, unfortunately, is nervous. Didn’t Mama say something about him getting over his shyness? It looks like she was way off on that one. Bonnie, for her part, will have none of it.

“We’re not practicing kissing, really. We’re rehearsing for a very important play. Opening night is only two days away. If you don’t learn to stop blushing when we kiss, the whole play will be a big joke. And if that happens, the stupid grown-up feud will go on and on and get worse and worse. And we won’t be able to be friends anymore. It will be hard for any Bears and Grizzlys to be friends anymore! What do you think of that, Brother Bear?”

If you remember the story sting, you’ll know that they continue to kiss and Brother continues to blush. As much as they’re probably enjoying it, they aren’t achieving their intended goal. Bonnie is full of plans today, though, and she’s got one more that could work.

Bonnie noticed earlier that when the cubs teased Brother about his crush, he blushed. Yet, he quickly stopped blushing when he got angry with Too-Tall. “The big creep got me so mad that I forgot all about being embarrassed,” Brother says.

Here is something else I don’t get. Why does Brother get all the teasing? Bonnie obviously likes him as much as he likes her. How come nobody goes, “Bonnie’s got a boyfriend! Bonnie’s got a boyfriend!”? What a double standard.

Whatever. Clearly, when Brother wants to get into a fistfight with Too-Tall, he forgets everything else. And that, Bonnie says, they can use. She suggests that when they kiss, Brother should imagine he’s giving Too-Tall a swift punch to the face. They give it a try, and it works! The illustration is actually a bit disturbing. Bonnie gives Brother a kiss and looks at him with satisfaction as he, with an angry look on his face, has a thought-bubble over his head depicting him knocking Too-Tall’s lights out.

And before you know it, it’s the night of the play. Feelings are so tense that the police have shown up to keep order. That turns out to be a good thing, because as soon as Farmer Ben and Squire Grizzly see each other, they start snarling. Somehow, things calm down enough that the play can go on.

The curtain rises and… there’s Freddy touching up the balcony. Oh Freddy.

Well, after Freddy embarrasses himself and his parents, the play begins.

The cubs did a wonderful job. The audience seemed to be under a spell. They barely moved in their seats. There were cries of shock and horror as the Capulets and Montagues fought with one another for no good reason. There were shrieks and gasps when the brave Mercutio was killed in a sword fight. And there were sighs of happiness when Romeo and Juliet met secretly.

The kissing scene goes well, even. Not only did Teacher Bob worry that Brother would blush, he also worried that Papa and Squire Grizzly would leap onstage and pull their cubs apart. Honestly, I could see that happening in real life with parents who hated each other, so I think Teacher Bob’s fears are well founded. Fortunately, all goes according to plan.

Hey, where are Bonnie’s parents, anyway? Aren’t they at the play, didn’t she say she was going to introduce Brother to them? What do they think of the cubs’ friendship?

The play is a success. Everyone in the audience gets over themselves and apologize to each other. The feud is forgotten about, and the audience gives a great ovation. There are ten curtain calls, TEN!

As celebration, a little party is thrown at Queenie McBear’s house. At the party, Bonnie and Brother, although now free to hang out together as much as they want, find that without the taboo they really don’t have much desire to be boyfriend and girlfriend. They agree that being regular old friends will do nicely. Personally, I think Brother is insane for passing it up, but that’s just me.

Queenie wants to play Post Office, except it’s some alternate version of Post Office where a boy and girl go into the post office one at a time. I’m not sure if Stan and Jan didn’t know the actual rules to the game, or if they intended Queenie to be a little rascal. Anyway, when Bonnie’s turn comes around, she invites Brother into the post office with her (it’s the laundry room). Since they’ve decided to be just friends, yet don’t want to disappoint the other party members, they fake it. Bonnie makes kissing noises while Brother “moaned as if he was having a great time.” They emerge having not swapped any spit and the other cubs are satisfied.

Brother, you piss me off. You had the greatest opportunity of your young life and you blew it just because perfectly good fruit didn’t taste as sweet as forbidden fruit.

In all seriousness, I give New Girl in Town two thumbs up. It was funny. Sure, the Bear/Grizzly thing can confuse you if you think about it too much, but it’s a simple thing to just not think about it all. They’re bears, after all, they don’t work the same way we do.

There is no particularly relevant moral lesson to be taught in this book, as there was in Drug Free Zone, except that it’s usually silly for families to feud needlessly. Maybe some young kids can appreciate the way Brother gets teased for his crush. Lots of kids get crushes but are too afraid of ridicule to even try being friends with the object of the crush, and that’s kind of tragic.

My one criticism is that the idea that a production of Romeo and Juliet can pierce through prejudice is a little too silly. I wish that the book would have done something a little more realistic in terms of handling the feud, especially with Papa. Papa was so much the bad guy in this book. Stan and Jan often like to make him the unreasonable one, but when you’re talking prejudice and feuding, it doesn’t come off as endearing as it has before. Maybe that’s the point, maybe his feelings are supposed to be silly and unfounded. I guess that works for kids. Beneath all of that, it’s an amusing story. Brother and Bonnie’s friendship is cute and innocent, and something about Brother’s arc in this book rings true.

The Berenstain Bears and the Drug Free Zone

DRUGS? IN BEAR COUNTRY?
Yes! And Brother and Sister Bear are sure that they can solve the mystery of who is behind Bear Country's drug problem. But this is a big-time crime—and fighting it could be risky... even dangerous!

I imagine that Stan and Jan Berenstain, back in the early Nineties, were just itching to write a Berenstain Bear book about drugs. They just had to do it. Something in their bodies was compelling them. And so they did. They knew the parents of America wouldn't like it if their five-year-old son or daughter, trying to learn how to read, picked up a Berenstain Bear book at the school library and was thus introduced to a world of "happy pills" and "kingpins," but the Berenstains couldn't help but start punching the story out on a typewriter. Sure, they thought they could stop typing whenever they wanted, but drug stories, they can get to you, man. They make you do things you don't really want to do.

But there was a solution: The Berenstains and Random House could create a new series of Berenstain Bear books aimed at older kids, who had outgrown the regular picture book series. And that, I like to think, is how The Big Chapter Books series was created. Stan and Jan had to get their drug book fix, and they got it.

The Berenstain Bears and the Drug Free Zone is the first book in the Big Chapter Books series, and was published in 1993. That actually puts it a little bit on the tail end the big "Just Say No" campaign conceived by Nancy Reagan in the Eighties. Still, drug abuse was a big concern then. I was a kid in elementary school at the time, and I recall D.A.R.E. being ubiquitous. Nevertheless, after picking this book up for the first time in years, and noticing the copyright date, I wondered if the Berenstains hadn't at least conceived of the story a number of years before 1993.

So let's get into it. In addition to the back cover blurb that I quoted at the top of this entry, the very first page has a "story sting," a few lines of narration and an illustration teased in from somewhere else in the story. The text reads:

Suddenly Freddy's dog froze. The cubs did the same. They listened. In a few seconds, they heard a faint crunching sound coming toward them. They quickly hid in the bushes and watched someone come out of the woods....

Who was it?
Could it be the drug Kingpin?
If it was, what would he do if he saw them?

The illustration shows a dog and three young bears hiding behind some bushes. That's Freddy, Sister, Brother, and Freddy's dog.

The copyright page, I noticed, has a "summary" of the story printed right there between the names of the authors and the ISBN numbers. It says, "Brother and Sister Bear try to solve the mystery of how illegal drugs are getting into their school." Not much of a summary, but accurate enough.

The book begins in a way that almost seems it was written for readers unfamiliar with the Berenstain Bears. It introduces Bear country, points out a few landmarks, and suggests that it is a place with "almost no problems." What makes it not quite perfect? Well, Ralph Ripoff, a guy you won't find in the First Time Books series, tries to cheat people with a "crooked card game," and Beartown has pretty awful traffic, and the Forbidden Bog outside of town is home to three bears named the Bogg Brothers who are known to poach endangered animals (yeesh).

By the by, the next line right after the one about the Bogg Brothers says, "But problems like those are not too serious." I'm pretty sure shooting endangered animals is pretty serious. What's more alarming is the illustration. The illustrations in these Big Chapter Books are not really the kind you'd find in the First Time Books. They are simple pen-and-ink with toner but no color, and often feature speech bubbles, so you can get a little extra dialogue out of them. This particular illustration features Bear Country police chief Bruno admonishing the Bogg Brothers for "shootin' and pollutin'," and he warns that if he hears any more about their criminal deeds, "It'll go hard with you." Now, you have to wonder, why the hell doesn't Chief Bruno ARREST them if they have been accused of shooting and polluting? Obviously there's somebody willing to testify, so why even give the rednecks a second chance?

Anyway, you can see where the intro is going. Sure, things seem fine in Bear Country, but of course they aren't. A town meeting has been called to order at Bear Country School, and as they head on their way to attend, the Bear Family speculates on what the meeting could be about. It must be something fairly benign, they decide, because except for Too-Tall Grizzly's gang, there are no real problems at Bear Country School. As you'll remember, in the early Nineties bullying had absolutely no negative repercussions.

But this is a serious meeting about a serious problem. Not only is principal Honeycomb in the auditorium, but so is Chief Bruno and even Mayor Honeypot. Chief Bruno wastes time for no one. He pulls out a bottle full of pills that the janitor of the school found in an unused locker. He asks the audience what they think the pills may be. One naive young cub suggests candy, but when one bear suggests medicine, Chief Bruno replies, "'It's some kind of BAD MEDICINE. What I'm holding here, friends, are drugs! Illegal drugs!'"

Shock and horror abound through the audience, which is the perfect time for the mayor to show up and explain just what he is going to do about it. Stan and Jan, for some reason, decide to make strongly apparent that Mayor Honeypot has a bit of a speech impediment: he gets the beginnings of his words mixed up. For instance, when he announces his plan to set up drug free zones, he calls them "drug zee frones." Also notable is that right after he announces the zones, he actually asks out loud to himself what that means, and then looks down at his notes for an answer. Social commentary, Stan and Jan?

What "drug free zone" means, according to Mayor Honeypot's notes, is that any drug crime committed within the zone will be punished twice as harshly as usual. Yes, that is all. He ends his speech by saying, "'I trust all of you will support this moo neasure—I mean, new measure—and also remember who thought of it at election time.'" The narration in the next paragraph is even better: "The whole audience applauded loudly. Then one bear after another rose to voice his support for the new Drug Free Zone. Mayor Honeypot was very pleased with himself." The illustration shows the audience applauding as Mayor Honeypot holds his fists clasped together above his head like he just won a poker tournament. You can see the Bear family in the audience. Papa is pleased, but Mama, Sister, and Brother don't look convinced that anything significant has been accomplished. Social commentary, Stan and Jan?

Probably, because rarely are the titular Drug Free Zones brought up after the first chapter, and Brother even witnesses a drug exchange take place next to one of the signs. I don't think it's much of a stretch to suggest that Stan and Jan were trying to say that the preventative measures against drug dealing in communities weren't all that effectual. There will be more of that later in the book, but for now I've got a strong urge to look at the cover again.


You can see Too-Tall and a mysterious man in a trench coat exchanging a packet of pills right next to a Drug Free Zone sign. Not only that, they are doing it right behind the back of a police officer. Way to go, Mayor Honeypot!

Come to think of it, look at Brother.


He looks high to me. Oh, Brother, I thought you were better than that.

As the Bear family returns home, With Gramps and Gran joining them in their walk, Papa Bear makes clear his disappointment. The fact that drugs even exist within Bear Country is "shameful" and "disgraceful" in his point of view. Oh, but look! A Drug Free Zone sign, and it lifts Papa's spirits! "'That'll make those rotten drug pushers think twice!'" he excliams.

Oh, Papa Bear, you naive son of a bitch.

As much as Mama Bear would love to agree with her husband, if only to protect his fragile innocence, she points out the obvious: the drug dealers will just deal outside of the zone (if they even give the zone any credence). Papa's retort is "We've got to do something, don't we?" as if doing something ineffectual is worthwhile simply because it's something.

They pass the house of a Miz McGrizz who has been trying to rent out a room for the past month. Right on cue, a bear in a trench coat and a big scar on his cheek pops out of nowhere, plucks the FOR RENT sign from the lawn, rings the doorbell, and a horrified Miz McGrizz evidently rents him the room, because the very next morning Brother and Sister see him walk out of her house as they're on their way to school. I suppose he could have murdered Miz McGrizz with the FOR RENT sign and then stayed in her house, but that would be too obvious.

Well, if it looks like a drug dealer, and it looks like a drug dealer, then it must be a drug dealer. Sister notes the "Ugly Roomer" as a "prime-time suspect," because he looks like a crook on a TV show. "Oh, brother," Brother says in response. Sister complains about his use of the phrase "Oh, brother," and asks why he never says, "Oh, sister."

Oh, sister. I think this would have been the perfect time for Brother to throw out a curse word or two, but I guess Stan and Jan were saving that for the Big Big Chapter Books series.

Brother and Sister arrive at the house of their Cousin Freddy, to walk with him to school. "As usual, Freddy's floppy-eared dog, Snuff, ran up to give them a wet-tongued hello." Hold the phone, there. Is Freddy's dog named Snuff? Let me read that again. Yes, Freddy's dog is named Snuff. In a story about drugs, Cousin Freddy's dog is named Snuff. Does that make anyone else laugh?

Freddy's dog was probably named in a previous book in one of the other Berenstain Bear continuities, but it's still pretty damned funny.

Freddy also has an instant camera (Polaroid camera) with him because it's photography club day or something at school. My elementary school never had anything like that. We would have Bike Day one day a year, and that was it.

The three cubs discuss the Ugly Roomer at Miz McGrizz's, but even as Brother doesn't want to accuse him of anything without evidence, he is the first to suggest that Too-Tall and his gang are somehow involved. Sister and Freddy are excited to investigate; they can't wait to start up the old Bear Detectives club, but Brother warns that they shouldn't get too excited, because, after all, "This could be DANGEROUS."

Of course, that's dangerous in the Berenstain-Bears-books-for-children sense of the word.

On the way to school, the cubs pass by Chief Bruno giving Ralph Ripoff and his card table the heave-ho away from the entrance of the pharmacy. Really, Ralph? The entrance of the pharmacy? That's the best place to find suckers? Have you tried the bank, or the used car dealership? How about the maternity ward? They say a sucker is born every minute.

"It's getting so a fella can't make an honest dishonest living anymore!" Ralph protests as he packs up his table, like a character out of a black and white movie from the Forties. But then, he notices the cubs, and his mood lightens. He loves cubs. He even invites them to his houseboat where they will have the opportunity to make some extra bread (sister obviously thinks he means actual bread). He doesn't elaborate on what exactly the cubs can do to make that extra bread, he just says, "I'll put you onto something, shall we say... interesting?"

Doesn't he just sound like a drug dealer? No? You say he sounds like a red herring?

The cubs continue walking, and Freddy is the first to fall victim to the cliche. He suggests Ralph could be a drug dealer, and Sister agrees. "He loves to trick everyone," she says, and that comes in mighty handy when selling drugs. But Brother defends Ralph, and points out that while Ralph is always cheating grown-ups, "He'd never do anything to hurt cubs. I think he sort of likes us." Brother may be right, but that's a story for another book.

This is when Freddy says the most out-of-left-field thing he's ever said. "He's got more angles than a dodecahedron." Well, gee, Freddy, if you put it that way, I guess Ralph should be a prime-time suspect.

But they have no time to tease Freddy for his despicable nerdiness, because Skuzz, one of Too-Tall's gang, whizzes past them on a bicycle and crashes right into Officer Marguerite's patrol car. As the cubs, Officer Marguerite, and the school nurse investigate, they notice that the bike Skuzz has been riding is Queenie McBear's bike. He stole her bike, and not only that, he's so high he doesn't even know where he is. "Wanna see me do a super triple wheelie?" he asks.

As an ambulance takes Skuzz away, Brother finds a clear plastic bag full of pills where Skuzz wrecked the bike. He picks it up and intends to give it to Officer Marguerite, but her car is already pulling away. So what does he do? He just puts the bag in his pocket and thinks, "These might come in handy."


During recess that day, the cubs see Too-Tall and his gang hanging out and being gang members by the gate to the football field. The narration takes a couple of paragraphs to explain the nature of the Too-Tall gang.

They put graffiti on the school walls. They rang doorbells and ran. Sometimes they knocked over garbage cans at night. Most of the gang would have been happy to just stick with those kinds of pranks. But Too-Tall wouldn't let them stop at that.

Sometimes, when no grownups were watching, the gang would force a cub to hand over his or her lunch money. Any cub that refused could count on getting knocked down at least. Bullying cubs and stealing money was Too-Tall's idea of a good time.

I remember being a kid and reading books and seeing TV shows where school bullies took lunch money. I don't recall ever having someone threaten to take my lunch money. I wondered if it was because the school I went to had a remarkably high percentage of well-behaved kids. Then I remember no, it didn't, it's just that stealing lunch money wasn't the kind of misbehavior kids there took part in.

And knock over garbage cans at night? What the hell kind of a prank is that? What's so great about doing something that raccoons do?

Anyway, Brother surmises that if Skuzz is on drugs, so are the rest of the gang. That's when Too-Tall slips past the gate and heads for the football field, leaving his gang to be high all by themselves. Brother knows something's up. He asks Freddy and Sister to distract Too-Tall's gang, which, if memory serves, with Skuzz gone would leave only two cubs, Smirk and Vinnie, while he takes Freddy's Polaroid to the football field after Too-Tall. While Freddy and Sister commence their part of the plan, Brother slips by the gate to the football field. Who does he see under the bleachers? Too-Tall and the Ugly Roomer!

Brother snaps a photo, sneaks away, and waits a minute for the picture to develop. Pretty soon, there it is, photographic evidence of a drug deal between Too-Tall and the Ugly Roomer.

Brother can't wait to bust Too-Tall's ass. He returns to the gate, where Too-Tall has already rejoined his gang, and tells the big guy up front that he's interested in trying "happy pills." (Doesn't he already have some)? Too-Tall claims to have none, and even turns his pockets inside out as proof. Some money falls out, but no drugs. Brother is stunned.

Now wait a second here. Brother saw a drug deal between Too-Tall and the Ugly Roomer. He saw a selling of drugs. Yet Too-Tall has on his person money but no drugs. Gee, I wonder what that could mean?

As the three cubs examine the photo after school, they can make out money in the Ugly Roomer's hand. "The money Too-Tall just gave him for drugs!" proclaims Freddy. God damn it, Fred.

The cubs decide to go to the hospital to visit Skuzz, and see if they can get anything out of him. Skuzz won't talk, though. He won't even admit to having taken any drugs, even when Brother shows him the photo. The cubs could try water-boarding him, of course, but they figure it's easier to just ask Skuzz's doctor, Dr. Gert Grizzly, if he took the happy pills. Dr. Grizzly is remarkably up front with the cubs, and tells them that Skuzz "had taken plenty of drugs when he crashed into that car."

That's apparently all they needed, because Brother and Freddy are ready to go to the police with their evidence. But Sister has some questions. She basically asks Dr. Grizzly what drugs actually are and why they are so bad in the first place, and even though Brother and Freddy admonish her for asking dumb questions, the narration reveals they wonder the same thing.

So the whole time, the cubs were trying to stop the selling of illegal drugs without understanding what makes them so bad. No one had the common decency to tell the cubs why illegal drugs are illegal.

I should mention that earlier in the book, Sister was repeating Papa's phrases that the idea of drugs in Bear County was shameful and unbelievable. Clearly, the cubs know that drugs are bad, but have no idea how or why. They know only because the adults say they're bad. And of course, no one bothers to tell them until they ask.

So Dr. Grizzly tells them, just like how she told them the results of her patient's blood test. She gives them "the straight dope," which, by the way, is the name of this chapter. Drugs are dangerous to the body, they have mind-altering chemicals, they are addictive, and can damage the heart and kidneys. Sister asks the obvious question: if drugs are that dangerous, why do people take them?

When I was a kid, I never asked about drugs. I knew they were bad, and if I ever got caught trying to use them I'd get into deep shit, and that was all that was necessary to know. But even as a six-year-old going through my first experience with the D.A.R.E. people, I really did wonder that. Why do people even take drugs in the first place? I didn't ask and no one ever cared to explain. And frankly, neither do Stan and Jan.

The reason Dr. Grizzly gives Sister is peer pressure. People take drugs because other people pressure them into it. If you don't do what they do, they make you feel silly for it. Brother even chimes in on this, having faced peer pressure himself, and to be honest, what he says rings pretty true. In fact, he answers the question even better than Dr. Grizzly does.

"They try to make you feel 'uncool' if you don't do what they're doing. They tell you you're 'chicken' or that you're just scared of what your parents will say. They think they're more grown up just because they're doing something their parents told them not to."

I have to applaud Stan and Jan for laying that part of it out. Unfortunately, they still don't give the real reason why people take drugs: because getting high feels good.

When you were a kid, did anyone ever tell you that? Did anyone ever tell you that getting high feels good, and that's why people take drugs? No one ever told me that. I never learned it until I saw Denise Crosby explain it on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Taking drugs makes you feel good, if only in an artificial way. But people are afraid of actually telling kids that. So kids get this message that drugs are bad without being able to reconcile it with the fact that so many people take drugs. It's confusing. Interestingly, Brother actually describes Skuzz as "high" earlier in the book. Does he really know what that means?

In the realm of this book, though, the cubs are satisfied and they take their leave. On the way out of the hospital, whom should they pass but Chief Bruno, on his way to talk to Skuzz. Quickly, they tell him that they have found that the Ugly Roomer is the drug kingpin, which he promptly laughs off. He doesn't even stop to talk, and goes right into the elevator before brother can show him their evidence. Freddy comments, "I guess you can't expect the chief to take a bunch of cubs seriously."

Little known fact: Detective Conan was inspired by Cousin Freddy

Dodecahedron!

The cubs still can't get over their suspicions about Ralph Ripoff, so with Snuff in tow they head to Ralph's houseboat. On the way through the woods to the river where Ralph's boat is moored, they hear footsteps approaching from ahead. Hiding behind some bushes, they see the the Ugly Roomer walking the path away from the houseboat. Now convinced Ralph is involved, they hurry ahead.

Good God, would you read this description of Ralph's houseboat?

Ralph Ripoff's houseboat was a mess. It was in a spot where the river became a lifeless muddy pool. The green scum that covered the murky water at the river's edge coated the boat near the waterline. Splintered planks showed under the peeling paint. Clouds of tiny bugs and mosquitoes swarmed around the houseboat.

Ralph, I don't think that crooked card game is working out for you. Get a real job and get a real house. You may have to start paying taxes, but at least you won't get malaria.

The cubs can hear Ralph's talking parrot, but Ralph himself isn't home. After giving Snuff a sniff of drugs, Brother sends the dog on his way through the houseboat. Snuff tracks for the scent, and winds up pawing at a cupboard. Inside, the cubs find a few dozen bags of happy pills. Freddy snaps a picture for evidence, but they have to leave immediately, as Snuff can smell Ralph coming home.

After great reluctance, especially on Sister's part, the cubs jump ship into the scummy water, swim a ways downriver, and escape. Despite being covered in muck, they head for the police station. Can you imagine a sight like that? Three kids and a dog covered in slime and clouds of mosquitoes walking into a police station with a Polaroid camera and a plastic bag full of drugs. I'm surprised Chief Bruno didn't call in SWAT.

At this point, Stan and Jan get a little clever. The cubs are excited and hyperactive. The narration says, "Being detectives in the fast lane—the super fast lane of drug dealing—was a thrill!" Talk about getting high.

Chief Bruno listens as the cubs explain that the Ugly Roomer is the kingpin and that Too-Tall and his gang are in on it. Before they can get to Ralph, however, none other than Ralph himself walks into the station with a box. He walks right up to the chief's desk and dumps the contents right onto it: bags and bags of drugs. Ralph says he discovered them in his houseboat and claims someone is trying to frame him, and demands that the police get right onto the case. The cubs don't believe him. Ralph is hurt.

Ralph's face suddenly looked deeply hurt. "Why, cubs!" he whined. "Are you accusing ME—your old buddy Ralph Ripoff, who dearly loves every little cub in Bear Country—of being a drug dealer?"

Chief Bruno, much to the cubs' surprise, comes to Ralph's aid. "I know you're telling the truth," he says. That's when Officer Marguerite and the Ugly Roomer walk in. Excitedly, the cubs cry out hat he's the kingpin and needs to be arrested, but in a Shyamalanian twist, the Ugly Roomer is actually Detective O'Brunihan, an officer from another precinct brought in to help solve the drug case. Apparently, he has. Officer Marguerite leaves and then quickly returns with Bear Country's infamous shooters and polluters, the Bogg Brothers.

Chief Bruno says, "It was bad enough that you were shooting crocodiles and bald eagles." WHAT!? They were shooting bald eagles and you still didn't arrest them, chief? This whole drug thing could have been avoided. I did actually enjoy one of the brother's response to this, "Varmints is varmints." He then spits tobacco juice on the floor. The illustration shows Snuff watch the juice splash, and I can't help but look at that drawing and think that Snuff is going to try to lick it up.

The chief cuts the cubs some slack and tells them that the pictures they took were good detective work, they just interpreted the evidence incorrectly. Too-Tall, he explains, wasn't buying drugs from the detective, but selling them. And as for the picture of the drugs on Ralph's houseboat, Chief Bruno puts the photo into a projector and blows it up (just go with it). Turns out that in the picture, in the tall weeds visible out the window above the cupboard full of drugs, you can see the Bogg Brothers trying to hide. Detective O'Brunihan saw them hide the drugs himself.

Ralph is on his way out, but doesn't leave before explaining that what he meant by extra bread was that he would pay the cubs to help clean the houseboat up. Now why didn't he just say that to begin with?

Brother finds that he is even feeling a little sorry for Too-Tall, knowing that Too-Tall's father Two-Ton is a harsh disciplinarian. He remembers when Too-Tall got caught stealing watermelons from Farmer Ben. "Too-Tall couldn't sit down for a week."

This is how stupid a kid I was. When I first read this book, I thought that meant that Too-Tall was forbidden to sit down for a whole week as punishment. I didn't realize that Too-Tall got a vicious spanking. I hope it was a vicious spanking.

Brother, taking responsibility for the Detective Bears, apologizes to Chief Bruno for messing up the case, but chief says they did an excellent job for beginners, but he also warns that drug dealing is a big-time crime not for cubs to get involved in. The cubs realize, though, that they got so caught up in being detectives they couldn't stop, just like being on drugs.

As the cubs get into Officer Marguerite's patrol car for a ride home, Sister says to Chief Bruno, "I think the only Drug Free Zone that means anything is the one in your heart and mind." The chief says she's probably right, Mayor Honeypot's drug free zone idea was idiotic and ineffectual and was just a ploy to win votes. And that's the end of the book.

It's 102 pages long, but the typeface is big and most pages have illustrations, so it's really a big chapter book relative to the Berenstain Bear picture books. I do have to admit, the writing is all right. I joked about the description of Ralph's houseboat, but that's quality scene setting. Even as an adult reading the book, I wasn't all that bored by it and nothing came off as insipid as a lot of childrens' books tend to do. Still, this is not the criterion for young advanced readers. In the realm of literature for older children, if A Wrinkle in Time is a great novel, then The Berenstain Bears and the Drug Free Zone is ten cent pulp. It's edgy (relatively), but doesn't have the intellectual substance you may probably want.

Not that I think it's all that bad. Really it isn't. I liked it enough as a kid. As an adult, some of the details irk me, but if you really want to introduce kids to the concept of drugs and just saying no, there's nothing harmful about Drug Free Zone, I just wish it didn't treat drugs so similarly to other anti-drug materials for children. I did like the way the book points out that just because a school is a drug free zone doesn't mean there won't be any drugs there. You've got to know enough about drugs to decide for yourself not to take them. Interestingly, it's the doctor that explains what drugs do and why they are bad. The police and the mayor simply declare the school a drug free zone and think nothing of educating the cubs about drugs. Best of all was Brother's explanation of peer pressure, and the way that other peoples' opinions aren't always worthwhile. If anything from this book, a kid should take that away.