The Berenstain Bears and the Big Spelling Bee

Berenstain bear books are always the greatest!

My granddaughter and I both love the BErnest sin Bears. The books are not only entertaining but are helpful as well.

We love all the Bear books. This one was great for us as my son is just learning to spell.

I never realized how much the BB books are written for adult humor a well as kids. I love the book:)

My boys liked this one. We own every Berenstain. My boys are 6 and 10

Another example of Papa being a failure because he's the patriarch. It always seems to be the father that pushes the children into doing something they're not interested in doing. It's never the mother that does that in stories. The mother is more insidious, usually.I'm kind of surprised that in the school spelling bee, someone who won their class's spelling bee is unable to spell the word "vicarious," and spells it very badly. "Viccariess." That doesn't even look like it spells vicarious.It has a good message. And Papa Bear, to his credit, realizes that he's done something wrong before it's pointed out to him by Sister Bear, so he's able to take her criticism well. However, because he feels bad about what he did, he disrespects her by not participating in the standing ovation given by everyone else when she wins.Brother and Sister are, for the sake of this story, good students in math, science, and history, despite at least one other story which says she's not very good at math.Sister wins the class spelling bee. That means she's going to the school spelling bee, so Papa decides that he'll help her study so she can win and go on to the next level. He gets all these vocabulary lists from his school days, which apparently he kept for some bizarre sentimental reason. Nowadays, we would look this stuff up on the Internet, but that's not allowed in the Bear family household. He drills her on these lists and she can't play with her friends. She goes to the spelling bee. She wins with the word "vicarious." Papa realizes that he's being vicarious. She tells him she doesn't want to go to the next level, and he says, "I'm happy for you, for standing up for yourself." The end.The best part: "The words were like rockets going off and exploding into bad spelling that knocked out the contestants one by one."Message: Nobody cares about spelling.For more children's book reviews, see my website at drttmk dot com.

I see just one psychological inaccuracy in this book: As I see it,if an asset is present in a parent's upbringing, that parent is likely to carry that asset on to his or her offspring without being pushy. For example, parents from a second-language environment don't ram that language down their children's throats, they merely let that language rub off onto their children. However, if an asset is absent, but desired, in a parent's upbringing, that parent is likely to push that asset on to his or her offspring. For example, Shirley Temple's mother wanted to be a kid star, so she groomed her darling little daughter for that purpose.If Papa Bear were a bad speller in his growing years, and teased by his classmates for that reason, I would say that the story is more true to life.

Sister Bear just won the school's warm up spelling Bee contest. Now everyone knows about it including Papa. Papa is so excited that he forces her to learn more words. She cannot even go play with her friends. He drills the words into her. At first he thought she could handle the pressure, but at the end he realizes he was only using Sister to give himself delight she should have had.