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This Berenstain Bears book is from 1995. I don’t know where the series changed, but somewhere after the height of the 80s they changed their approach to the stories and got more serious. From the start in the 60s the bears were about fun and silliness. They were zany and there was buffoonery going on. They might have had a moral or something serious amidst all the fun, but it was always about fun. Papa almost always made a fool out of himself. That’s where it changed. When Papa stopped being foolish, the series lost its sense of fun.

I actually like the message in this book. It’s very Oprah Winfrey. Be grateful for what you have. They realize they are grateful for their family. It’s a great idea and wonderful to have that in the world. It feels heavy though, like Jan and Stan are trying to hammer the point instead of let the fun be a way to take it in. This is a serious book. The lighthearted fun is not there. Mama and Papa are old and they don’t have fun anymore. I think that’s the problem with these later books in the Berenstain Bear books, they lost their sense of fun.

The kids did enjoy the book. We have been having lots of rain lately, so we read this on a night it was storming and it went with the book well. Afterward, we did talk about what we are grateful of for a few minutes. Both kids love the Berenstain Bears. So the book is nice.