Authors of the "Berenstain Bears" series

May 13, 1998

Stan and Jan Berenstain chat about their award winning series of children's books, "The Berenstain Bears."

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LiteraCCCy: Good Evening everyone. I am glad you are here. Random House and Talk City have had other author chats with Barbara Park, Sally Warner, and Mary Pope Osborne. To find more information in these Random House Author Chats, please visit www.talkcity.com/educenter/features.html. Random House Children's Publishing and Talk City's EduCenter are proud to present children's authors and illustrators Jan and Stan Berenstain. Jan and Stan Berenstain of Berenstain Bears fame have written more than 130 books of children's books. The Berenstains have now reached several generations of readers with their work. "We feel that humor is the best possible tool for teaching kids to read," say Stan and Jan. Please join me in welcoming Jan and Stan. You had a close relationship with Theodor Geisel -- a.k.a. Dr. Seuss. Can you tell us a little about your friendship and his role in creating the Berenstain Bears?

Berenstains: Lit, we started our career doing magazine cartoons back in the 40s and 50s. We began to get interested in children's books when we had children of our own -- Leo and Mike -- and we read in a magazine that Dr. Seuss was starting a whole line of kids books. Our favorite was McGelligot's Pool! We found out that he was starting a line of beginner books. The Cat in the Hat was the first one. The Big Honey Hunt was the first book we wrote. We sent it to Dr. Seuss and he liked it. And that was the first of the Bears books.

Blue Angel: Hi, I'm Emmanuel and 8 yrs old, I'm so excited you're here! What was your first book?

LiteraCCCy: Neat…the Big Honey Hunt is really popular in our library.

Berenstains: The second book had a banner on the cover that said "Another Adventure of the Berenstain Bears" -- without telling us -- and we said, "Why did you do that?" And he said it's like a circus act, like "Mergatroids Mules" or "Charley's Chips." And the name stuck.

Matts Mom: What I love about your books, they deal with real life situations that the children can relate to ( I have three children). Do these come from real life situations that you have dealt with?

Berenstains: MattsMom, absolutely. Our books are all about real life. We have two children, four grandchildren, and we're constantly supplied with new real life situations.

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