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.