Do you remember the Berenstain Bears? They are a family of bears that live in the children's literature created by Janice and the late Stanley Berenstain. The Berenstains started writing about the Bear Family, beginning with The Big Honey Hunt, in 1962. I've found that just about everyone of my generation who read the books as children are most familiar with the First Time Books series of picture books starring the Bear family. These books were intended to be read by young elementary-school-level children.
But kids get older, and Stan and Jan Berenstain realized that. So in the 1990s, the husband and wife writing team started the Big Chapter Books series, with books aimed at older children by both length and content. The Berenstain Bears now had a second continuity, kind of like Tenchi Muyo. The titles in this series tackled issues that may not have been appropriate for younger children. Books like The Berenstain Bears and the Drug Free Zone and The Berenstain Bears in the Freaky Funhouse dealt with serious crimes and issues like drug abuse and fraudulent business activities.
This blog, which I have named A Look at the Bears will feature reviews, written by me, of the titles in this Big Chapter Books series. They are big, they have chapters, and they are collections of numerous sheets of paper with text and illustrations printed on them and bound together. Big chapter books.
