The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Malletts Kids Books 4-week checkout	Kids Book / Holidays / Christmas / Berenstain, Stan	4-week checkout	Due 05-15-2024

During the Bears' search for a Christmas tree they are reminded of what Christmas is really about.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

School Library Journal Review
Summary / Annotation
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Fun submitted by LuckyDuck on August 26, 2011, 11:02pm Really Good!

Christmas submitted by Rumshaker13 on July 26, 2018, 2:03pm We read this every Christmas, a bit long but not bad

nice addition to the series! submitted by wookeny on June 23, 2019, 3:40pm This book is terrific and is kind of funny. I like the Bearenstain series! There are fun for little kids, and is also very easy to read. The Christmas book was very good and I liked it!

Not the Berenstains' Best submitted by Meginator on June 14, 2023, 11:16am This book departs from the traditional Berenstain Bears format, and unfortunately is much worse off for all of the changes. Longer than the traditional picture books and told in haphazardly constructed, occasionally rhyming poetry, the book is overly concerned with its moral without managing to tell a story that really supports it. The characters do largely behave according to expectations, with the usual focus on Papa Bear learning his lesson, but the authors are far too preachy and the resolution isn’t really earned by Papa’s actions; it’s a good idea, but it doesn’t flow naturally from the events as depicted. Likewise, the authors frequently insert moral mandates throughout the text but don’t show them in any meaningful way either through the narrative or the pictures; it’s nice to be reminded of the idea that Christmas is a time of giving rather than receiving, but countless other books actually show characters learning this or putting it into practice rather than simply shouting at readers. Even so, this could potentially be a perfectly pleasant (if flawed) Christmas story, were it not for the incredible missteps in the actual writing. The poetry simply does not flow off of the tongue and it is often quite difficult to locate the proper rhythmic and rhyming patterns, which change from stanza to stanza and completely ignore all of the reasons why authors opt for verse over prose. It’s clunky, it draws attention to its own shortcomings, and, when paired with the lackluster and overly preachy narrative arc, it is far more annoying than artful. I love Bear Country and I understand that the creators have always introduced Christian morality into their tales, but this book is nearly impossible to read aloud accurately at the first attempt and abandons the effective storytelling that makes the other books work both as morality plays and as (fictional) lived experiences.