Their first book, “The Big Honey Hunt,” was published in 1962. They wrote and illustrated the stories, which were based on their own Berenstain children, and later, grandchildren, to address common childhood concerns. Seuss books, they decided to collaborate on a children’s book featuring a human-like bear family, a practical Mama Bear, a bumbling Papa Bear, Brother Bear, and Sister Bear. They married, Stan joined the army and when he was discharged, they collaborated on cartoons that honed their homespun humor. Berenstain met her husband Stan in a first-year drawing class at the Philadelphia Museum of Industrial Art in 1941. The Berenstain’s own story is as sweet as their characters’.
"Those bears have helped so many children through so many kinds of challenges that kids face, in such a cheerful and kind of energetic way," Donna Jo Napoli, children's author and a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, t old the Philadelphia Inquirer. The simple, un-sophisticated stories dealt with perennial parenting issues like resolving fear of the dark, dealing with bullies, visiting the dentist, and controlling candy consumption.
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With her husband, Stan, Berenstain created a lovable bear family living in a multi-story treehouse, which spawned a “bear country” empire complete with books, videos, and TV shows, based on the homespun advice and old-fashioned humor doled out in her books. Jan Berenstain, co-creator of the beloved children’s book empire, the Berenstain Bears, has died.