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.