The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Friends

Stan and Jan Berenstain's The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Friends is a gentle story for 5 year olds about two bossy little cubs learning to get along.

What happens

Sister Bear is six and a bit lonely. Brother is off skateboarding with Cousin Freddy, her school friends live too far away, and there's only so much fun you can have skipping with a frog (and a butterfly).

Then a moving truck pulls up at the empty tree house down the road. The new family has a girl cub called Lizzy Bruin, and she's six too!

Their first afternoon is perfect. Swings, seesaws, tag and rolling down a grassy bank. But Sister reports back to Mama that Lizzy is a little bossy. And a little braggy.

Who gets to be teacher when two girls play schools? That's the question that brings it all crashing down. There's a tussle over the pointer, it snaps in two, and Sister storms home with her dolls.

Mama's reply is the heart of the book. She gently points out that Lizzy isn't the only cub who can be bossy, and that there's one thing you really do better on your own. Being lonesome.

It's such a familiar row. Anyone who's spent time with a five-year-old will have heard some version of "I'm never playing with her again!"

What's lovely here is that nobody is the baddie. Both girls want to be in charge, both girls get cross, and both are quick to say sorry. The rhyming insults they fling at each other are very funny too (Lizzy Lizzy in a tizzy!).

If your reader is just starting to work out friendships, or has a new friend who likes being in charge as much as they do, it's a good one to read together. There's plenty to talk about afterwards.

What to read next

If they enjoy this, try No Girls Allowed, where it's Sister's turn to be left out when Brother and his friends build a secret clubhouse in the middle of Frog Pond.