The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners

Stan and Jan Berenstain's The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners is a funny family story for 5 year olds about a household that's gone completely wild at the dinner table.

What happens

It starts small. A forgotten "please" here, a "thank you" there. Before long the Bear family is a pushing, shoving, name-calling mess, and mealtimes are a food fight with kicking under the table.

Mama tries everything. She coaxes, she complains and she shouts. She even asks Papa for help, though she secretly suspects he's part of the problem!

So she makes a plan. The Bear Family Politeness Plan is a big chart of rude habits, and each one comes with a chore as a penalty. Forget your "please" and you sweep the front steps. Name calling means cleaning out the whole cellar.

And the first bear caught out? Papa, for interrupting.

Brother and Sister come up with a cunning counter-plan. They'll be SO polite that Mama gets fed up and calls the whole thing off. "After you, Sister dear!" "Thank you, dear Brother!" It's very funny, and it doesn't work out quite the way they planned.

What makes this one such a good read aloud is that it's Papa who struggles most. Papa grumbles, does extra chores and insists manners are fine for cubs but papa bears have more important things to think about. Children love it when the dad gets told off (and quite a few parents will recognise themselves).

A trip to the supermarket and a little bump in the car give Papa a chance to find out why manners matter, in a way that makes a great last page.

It's a gentle, useful story to have up your sleeve if family mealtimes have got a bit rowdy at your house. It doesn't feel preachy, because the jokes carry it. The cubs end up being polite without even thinking about it, which is a nice thing for your reader to see.

The sentences are a bit longer than in the rhyming Berenstain Bears books, so it's more of a bedtime share than a first read-alone.

What to read next

For another Bear family story with a twist, try Too Much Teasing. Brother loves teasing Sister, right up until his new job as the head teacher's special messenger makes him the one who's being teased.