The Berenstain Bears Chapter Book: The Haunted Hayride

By Stan Berenstain and Jan Berenstain

Farmer Ben's family farm is in trouble, but luckily, he has some great friends in the Berenstain Bear cubs. Sister, Brother, and their friends decide to hold a Halloween Festival to raise money for Farmer Ben, so Farmer Ben doesn't have to sell his farm to a Theme Park developer. Unfortunately, the cubs don't plan on some unexpected visitors showing up—ghosts! Ben's spooky ancestors come back to the farm to join in on the festivities . . . but will their presence frighten the festival guests away and foil the cubs' plan.

This chapter book story is the perfect next step for Berenstain Bears fans!

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Sep 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9780062188571

Stan Berenstain

Stan and Jan Berenstain were already successful cartoonists for magazines and adult humor books when they began writing children's books. The first story starring the bear family, The Big Honey Hunt, appeared in 1962. Since then, more than 250 Berenstain Bears books have been published, and more than 260 million copies have been sold. What began as an idea sparked by their young sons' interest in children's books has become over the years arguably the best-selling children's book series ever. Since their inception, the Berenstain Bears stories have expanded to include picture books, beginning readers, and chapter books—even a hit TV show on PBS. Writing and illustrating the books has become a Berenstain family affair. Mike joined with his parents as a creative team in the late 1980s. The Bear family has expanded over the years as well. Sister Bear arrived in 1974, and baby Honey joined the family in 2000. Since Stan's death at age eighty-two in 2005, Jan and Mike have continued to write and illustrate wonderful new adventures for Mama, Papa, Brother, Sister, and Honey Bear. They live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which looks a lot like Bear Country.

Reviews for The Berenstain Bears Chapter Book

[nmhale_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I truly hate assigning so low a rating to this book, because our family likes the Berenstain books, and the stories in these staples of children's literature tend to be entertaining and well written. However, this particular entry in the series is inferior to its brethren books. The story describes Brother and Sister Bear venturing into a haunted house, in search of their cat who preceded them. It features lift the flaps, usually in the places the bears are searching around or under or behind. Eventually, they do find their cat, sitting with another Bear, the owner of the house. Brother and Sister proclaim that she is a nice bear after all, even if she does live in a haunted house, and promise to visit her again. The concept behind the book is fine, and could lead to a good story about mistaken first impressions and being carried away by one's imagination. However, these themes are not developed at all. In the first place, the house is not scary. No ghosts, no creepy shadows or spooky animals jumping out at them, nothing moving or floating around on its own. It is just some armor and dusty furniture and lots of cute and cuddly animals hiding in strange places. For a story about a haunted house, this book is disappointing. It is absurdly unscary. This could have been explained if the house had an unfair reputation of being haunted, and the author included some of the stories the bears had heard that led them to this conclusion, but no such framework exists. The second major problem is that the bear at the end of the book is simply a picture and a few sentences. The story does not characterize her at all. It never even mentions her until the end. Why didn't Brother and Sister know about her? Why does she live in this house? Why is she even a nice bear? We don't know, because the book doesn't tell us. It left me caring absolutely nothing about her, her house, and the entire surrounding adventure. Basically, this book is a dashed off story that uses familiar characters and the lift-the-flap technique to generate interest, and tie into a popular holiday motif. We ordered it through a school book order form, and I was excited to read it to my daughters, but it was a sad disappointment.