30 Books of Kindness Day 12 and 13: Berenstain Bears and Little Critter

It is a pretty safe bet that at some point in your life you have come across a Berenstain Bears or Little Critter book. Berenstain Bears books (by Stand and Jan Berenstain) and Little Critter books (by Mercer Mayer) are my go to books for when there is something in particular I would like to address. The books cover a range of topics from forgetting manners, to bullying, to spending time with mom and dad. The nice thing about these books is they are inexpensive and found in almost any big box store. We sadly do not have a bookstores near our house anymore, so I often find myself looking for books at Target and Walmart.

For our 30 Books of Kindness challenge, we read The Berenstain Bears: Forget Their Manners for day 12. In this book, Mama bear is fed up with Papa Bear, Sister, and Brother not being kind to each other. To counter the bad behavior, Mama makes a list of chores each bear has to do when they violate the Bear Family Politeness Plan. The little bears think they are going to trick Mama by being extra polite to drive her crazy. But, this plan backfires on them because Mama doesn't mind the super-nice behavior and they learn to like their good manners. Everyone is doing great except for Papa, who has a terrible case of road rage, and rear-ends another car. After being reminded by Sister to use his manners, he is able to prevent a big brawl from happening with the angry Bear, who got out of the car Papa hit.

For day 13, we read Just Me and My Mom by Mercer Mayer. In this book, Little Critter and his mom spent the day in the city. Little Critter keeps getting into trouble (losing the train tickets, picking up a dinosaur egg at the museum, bringing his pet frog to lunch), but his mom shows endless patience and kindness towards her child by helping him something else for them to do once they are kicked out of museums, aquariums, and restaurants. Little Critter ends up curled up with his mom at the end of the day on the train ride home, both happy and tired.

I remember reading Little Critter books and Berenstain Bears books with my mom when I was little. I even remember receiving The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Birthday at a very dramatic time in my childhood. What was your favorite Bear or Critter book growing up? Do you read them with your kids now?