The Berenstain Bears Get Religion

Michael Berenstain shares his memories of the classic books’ creators.

By Tonya Stoneman

When I asked Michael Berenstain which of the Berenstain Bears books is his favorite, he began telling me about the picnic story. I read that book in a dentist’s office more than 30 years ago, and I still remember it vividly. He’d been speaking less than a minute when images of the bear family surrounded by garbage, giant mosquitoes, and a noisy runway flooded into my mind. Do you remember the story?

Papa Bear sets out to take his family on the “perfect picnic.” They pack up and head out, hoping to revisit a nostalgic place he remembers. But they never find it. Instead, they go from one bad spot to another until they ultimately end up back at their own kitchen table—where they enjoy the best picnic spot ever.

Of all the stories Michael’s parents wrote (more than 300) that’s his favorite. He was just nine years old when Stan and Jan Berenstain began publishing the beloved books. During the hours they wrote, sketched, and painted in their studio, Michael hung around making pictures of his own on a big green tablet. “I saw the first book and all the subsequent books being sketched and created,” he says. “They’d say to me and my brother, ‘What do you think of this?’”

Stan and Jan met on their first day of class at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art and started their careers as cartoonists for magazines like Good Housekeeping, McCalls, and The Saturday Evening Post. They offered a humorous perspective on family dynamics, and their children’s books grew out of that. Both contributed to writing and the artwork of all their projects and worked as a team for more than 60 years.

The Berenstain Bears hit bookstores in 1962 and were wildly popular from the very beginning. Unlike the mainstream literature of the day, which focused on the life of one individual, these stories followed the lives of an entire family. “The books deal in a very focused way with the nuclear family—the relationship of children with parents,” says Michael. “A lot of children’s books have dealt with children interacting with one another. And there’s a great literary tradition of children who are orphaned or separated from their parents—of kids doing things by themselves. Our books are very different. Although the main characters interact with others in their society, the focus is really how the family interacts with each other.

“They’re also written for readers ages seven and under. Ninety percent of young children’s lives involve their families. A lot of kids relate to the books because the stories deal with issues that kids are really going through.”

And the stories are faithful to deliver real wisdom children can understand. In one, Brother Bear is faced with peer pressure. Too-Tall Grizzly, the school bully, dares him to steal a watermelon from Farmer Ben. When he hesitates, the bully persuades him with a devastating taunt: “You’re chicken!” Caught in the act, Brother receives a gracious rebuke from the wise old farmer.

“Well,” says Farmer Ben as they walk through his yard, “chickens aren’t very bright. But they’re too smart to do something stupid just because somebody calls them chicken.”

“I guess so,” admits Brother.

As they walk together, one of Farmer Ben’s sheep starts running toward the highway. The herd begins to follow him. In the nick of time, Shep, the old sheepdog, cuts them off before they get into trouble.

“Sheep are like that,” says Farmer Ben. “Follow a leader anywhere—off a cliff, if that’s what the leader decides. And some folks are like that too. Follow a leader wherever he goes—across a highway, over a cliff . . . to the edge of my watermelon patch.” Nothing more needs to be said. Brother knows exactly what he’s talking about, and the two share the watermelon together. When Brother faces the gang again, he doesn’t give in to their pressure.

The books grew in popularity and reached an intense peak in the 1980s when a Berenstain Bears TV show took to the airwaves. By then, Michael was an adult and realized that his parents had achieved a great success and that people genuinely loved the characters. “My parents had been very successful professionals back into the 1940s,” he says. “They understood what they were doing. But when the books reached a peak, that height of popularity was surprising.”

Michael never intended to work formally on his parents’ creation. He studied painting in art school, became a children’s book illustrator, and began writing stories of his own. But by the late 1970s, Stan and Jan didn’t have enough time to meet mounting demands. “They began to run into deadline problems because they had so much to do,” Michael recalls. “So they would ask me to work on things with them to help out. I just gradually took over, because there was so much to be done. And I found working on the books with them was extremely interesting and satisfying. So by and large, around 1990 I was working on the Bears books full-time, both writing and illustrating.”

But however enjoyable Michael’s new responsibilities were, taking on the task of creating fabulous storybook characters for children wasn’t as easy as one might think. “I was surprised by how difficult it is to draw the characters,” he says. “It’s extremely hard to fully control every aspect of their appearance, poses, and action. They’re designed to look simple, and nobody thinks of them as being artistically complex. But they grow out of an older cartoon style from the 1930s and 40s, and it’s a very different approach to drawing than we have now. It’s more classical—the kind of cartooning that was done in magazines and newspapers in the early 20th century, and it’s a far more subtle conceptually and design-wise. The complexity of the characters is not obvious. It’s hidden. I’m a well-trained artist, but when it came down to drawing the complete characters in books, I was surprised by how challenging that was.”

Faced with the rapidly changing world of digital media, Michael works diligently in his studio with pens and watercolors to preserve a legacy his parents began years ago. He has no intention of changing the renowned bear family to keep up with the times. Their message is tried and true. And the essence of that message is the subject of his newest book series, The Little Lights, a group of faith-based stories about love, honesty, prayer, and a lot more.

“We’ve always been aware, both my parents and myself, that we’ve had a strong following among Christian families,” says Michael. “I come from a mixed background. My father is Jewish and my mother is a Christian. That issue was not dealt with during my childhood. I was raised betwixt and between, and became a Christian as an adult. So part of creating this series comes from the fact that I personally felt a call to deal with Christianity in the books.”

Michael delivers his messages of faith with the grace and subtlety of all the Berenstain Bears books. In one of the stories, Brother Bear notices Cousin Fred standing on the baseball mound with his head bowed and his eyes closed. What could he be doing? he wonders. Later, Brother learns that his cousin has been praying. The Bear Family prays at home before going to bed, when they ask God to bless their friends and family. But Brother didn’t realize he could pray any time, any place, and about anything. The next time he goes up to bat, Brother says a prayer and waits for the grand slam. But that doesn’t happen. When he talks to Cousin Fred about it, he learns that God is faithful to answer our prayers. But He doesn’t always answer them in the way we expect.

Public response to the faith-based series has been “through the roof,” says Michael. “We’ve gotten a very good reaction, so I’m glad we’ve done it. And it’s something that is very important to me personally. It’s something I wanted to do as an expression of my own religious faith. And I wanted to do it to connect up with and serve people who are religious. By dealing with religion through the fun and laughter of the Berenstain Bears, we hope to nurture these families in their goal of raising children secure in their faith.”

The Bears are seeing a resurgence of popularity. And it looks as if the endearing characters that have blessed the adults who grew up with them will do the same for their children.

Share the gift of the Berenstain Bears with the children in your life this Christmas season. Titles in this four-book set include: The Berenstain Bears Love Their Neighbors; The Berenstain Bears Give Thanks; The Berenstain Bears Faithful Friends; and The Berenstain Bears Play a Good Game. Ages 4-7. 

The Berenstain Bears

4-book set | $15 (U.S.)