The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Chores: A Funny Picture Book About Responsibility and Helping at Home for Kids

The Berenstain Bears

by Stan Berenstain, Jan Berenstain

Are you having trouble with chores in your house? Share this funny book with your family to encourage everyone to do their share! Papa Bear and the cubs are having some trouble with chores—they don't want to do them! When they decide to take a break from cleaning, Mama Bear plays along. But what will happen when the mess builds up...and up...and up? This Berenstain Bears story will have kids laughing—and hopefully lead to less bickering about taking out the garbage and other chores around the home!

Genres: Childrens, Picture Books, Fiction, Juvenile, Animals, Family, Young Adult

32 pages, Paperback

First published July 26, 2005

About the author

Stan and Jan Berenstain (often called The Berenstains) were American writers and illustrators best known for creating the children's book series the Berenstain Bears. Their son Mike Berenstain joined them as a creative team in the late 1980s.

Reviews

[Kelly Wickham]

It is another great Berenstain Bears book that both Marcos and I could relate to. Marcos said that he hates chores. We talked about how important it is to help Mom with chores around the house. I am not sure he digested this information very well. I empathized with Mama Bear. She is trying desperately to keep the house clean, and everyone fed, and find some time for things that she enjoys. Papa Bear calls a moratorium on chores and demands that everyone have fun, but he soon learns that this is not the answer either. Again, it all comes back to balance, a little cleaning up, a little fun, and chores are important to maintain the balance of a happy household.

[Amy]

I love the message of chores being important and EVERYONE’S responsibility, but makes me mad how everything falls on Mama Bear. I get the traditional gender roles, but if I was Mama Bear, I’d be setting the record straight real fast.

[Cassandra Gelvin]

Papa Bear fails at life.

This one's a good example of the commonly-mentioned problem with the Berenstain Bears that Papa Bear is just a doofus and fails at being a human being, or whatever he is, by virtue of being male.

The kids and Papa Bear don't want to do their chores, and Mama Bear ends up doing them all and getting in a bad mood about it because she's doing everybody's chores. Then Papa calls a family meeting and says, “I think we should ease up on the chores.” And Mama goes, “That's a good idea!” And she just stops doing all her chores and everything turns out miserable and when she's gone the kids and Papa clean everything up and then she thanks them.

This is another book where nothing really gets resolved on a permanent basis. That's the kind of thing that will build into a cycle: everybody doing their chores once, and being thanked for it, and then going back to Mama doing their chores and resenting it, and then Mama not doing her chores as a way of passive-aggressively trying to force everybody to do their chores, everybody doing their chores in one fell swoop, and then going back to living in a messy house again. It doesn't work. It's not a long-term solution. The ending is very unresolved.

The best part: “A strange green mold grew on the shower curtain, and a thousand-legger came swimming toward Sister in the bathtub.”

For more children's book reviews, check out my site at http://www.drttmk.com.

[Beth]

Doesn't hold up with time- old gender norms and stereotypes

[Asho]

Both big kids (age 7 and 5) enjoy Berenstain Bears books right now. This one was okay. I could relate to Mama Bear just throwing in the towel on chores so she could live her life and enjoy her hobbies. I thought that overall the lesson was good. My one (big) complaint was that Papa Bear gets lumped in with the kids as someone who can't be bothered to do chores. The gender stereotype of the dad as a doofus who expects his wife to do all the housework seems dated in 2020.

[Rosa Cline]

Another good Berenstain Bears book 'learning but not 'in your face' learning book. Everyone was 'meaning' to get around to doing them but never did. Mama would always have to do it for them. But one day she stopped doing it. The house started piling up with cobwebs, dishes, dirty clothes etc. The family saw how important it was for everyone to help do their part everyday. Little things every day that helps one another around the house. Written in a way that is fun to read-listen to and to look at the illustrations as well.

[Piper]

I didn't like this one very much. I thought it was boring.

[Miguel Sanchez]

Great learning book

It is the best way to go over some important shores at home. What a great way to teach our kids the importance of shores st home

[Jennifer Fann-Tucker]

Classic

[Karah]

I shudder to think how putrid a house could get if a mother decides to stop cleaning her home in real life.


Nonetheless, a cool story.

[Kelly]

Read this with our daughter and talked about the benefits of doing chores and having a clean house.

[KaitandMaddie]

Depressingly realistic that Papa Bear lacks the maturity of a real grownup and it’s all on Mama Bear.

[Stef]

Hear ye, hear ye: This book depicts a dog poo on the floor.

[Nicla Dolar]

Love the Berenstain Bears

This didn’t disappoint me or my kids! It was a wonderful read that we pull out often when our chores come Knock’n!

[Joey Gee]

ISBN 1-4176-8908-0

Thousand legger swimming towards Sister Bear 🤢

[Jenae]

Didn’t love the tired trope of papa bear being lumped in with the kids as someone that “has to” rely on mama bear to take care of the house. It’s your house, too, my dude.

[Genevieve]

This book was about having trouble with chores and they always have good excuses for them one is about the lawn mower thing and a spider web and papa said I don't want to ruin mama's web and that was a good excuse and there was a poop one there was dog poop on the floor and the sister says I'm waiting for it to dry so it'll be easier for it to be scoop up. Brother's excuse was to skip setting the table because there was a tv show and he wanted to do a report to them. I didn't really like the story because they didn't do their chores a lot but at the end SPOILER they did and there was also a crossword in the book that I did and there was a maze that I did.
My favorite character was all of them even the baby even though the baby almost knocked over the lamp. I loved them all because they all eventually cleaned up. It was only mama at first but then all of them did it.
I would recommend this book because I would show this to other people to say this is what would happen when you don't clean with your mommy...or daddy.

[Evan]

Stan & Jan Berenstain's classic Berenstain Bears stories were personal favorites throughout my childhood, and now I use them often, whether for reading to young children or for teaching English to older children and adults. Not only are they beautifully illustrated, consistently humorous, and full of educational content. They also teach morals and provide guidelines for social interaction in a way that's neither patronizing, nor puerile, nor pedantic. 'The Trouble With Chores' specifically addresses the problems most of us have managing our time with respect to menial tasks, but focuses on a family approach to such an issue. Note that this book was published in 2005, fairly late in the Bears series when the family includes Honey bear, the baby sister of Brother and Sister bear (just in case you've already read some Berenstain Bear books and do not wish to be surprised by this addition).

[Bernadette]

I loved this book because it shows how families have to work together to keep the house in order. It also shows the balance needed to have work and play and keep everyone happy.



LESSON: At the beginning of the school year the teacher can implement a lesson on order and taking care of your classroom the same way you take care of things at home. The teacher can makes labels and place them around the classroom. The students would then identify and place things in their appropriate places. This can be repeated again in the middle of the school year if needed. The children can also discuss what their roles are at home and the chores they do at home. The teacher can then give them roles in the classroom.

[↜ƈɦǟռ☂ɛℓℓɛ↝]

★★★★The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Chores by Stan and Jan Berenstain
We have Mama Bear upset again. Papa Bear and the cubs are slacking off with chores again and the house is getting trashed. She tries to assign chores to everyone, to no avail. Solution, reverse psychology, love it.
She decides she's had enough and stops cleaning. After awhile, the family works together to get the tree house back in order.
Pretty sure my house would implode, if I tried this. But is it a cute story to teach everyone to help out, and things run smoother.

[Shelli]

Mama Bear is doing all the chores around the house and is getting a bit fed up. Even though sometimes the cubs and Papa have a good excuse why not to do the chores right then doesn't mean that they don't need to be done. A lesson is needed and Mamma Bear takes an unconventional approach to the problem with chores. Personally I wouldn't try Mama Bears method to get my point across. Would you?? Read the book and see.

[Rebecca]

Awesome kids book

I really liked this book a lot and am going to read again.
Star wars episode three
Yahoo mail and the things you've been in a few minutes late for work
Yahoo mail to quit smoking a cigarette and I have no clue where to go out with you
I don't know what you doing today and projects that are not allowed to the gym now
Yahoo and Google now on my phone was in a bit more about it here in a bit more about it

[Melissa Buecher]

I love that Mama Bear just stops doing the chores and goes on her merry way to the quilting club and gardening show...I would love to walk out on my chores!! I would not like the fruit flies in the kitchen or the green slime on the shower curtain, so I try not to let the kids or husband be in charge of the important chores, saving us a visit from a HAZMAT crew.

[Anna]

Another great lesson from the BB. Mama Bear gets tired of assigning household chores to members of the Bear family and still ending up doing it all herself. So she lets everything go, and eventually Papa and the cubs dissatisfied with no clean towels or dishes and dirt and mold and insects all over the house! So they clean up while Mama is out.

Much appreciated by Moms!

[Misty]

I absolutely love these Berenstain Bears books. So many of these I checked out from the library and read them to my daughter. She loved them and some of these teach great lessons. Growing up in the 80's I watched the cartoon. Good stuff!

[Jennifer]

This is a wonderful book about doing chores to help out family, not because you have to. This would be a great to read at the beginning of school to help create the community feeling in the class. Students should want to help out in the classroom after reading this book.

[jacky]

Eh. I only take these out when Natalie asks, and she only asks because she's seen the show on Sprout. Most of these books are pretty crappy. They lack characterization and plot, the morals comes off too hard, and the illustartions aren't special. This one is no exception.

[Stephanie F.]

My favorite part of reading this book with the children I babysit is when they realize what the mother bear is up to (getting the family to share in doing the household chores) before we even get to that part. : )

[Sabine]

We read this with our kids after I got diagnosed with some health issues where I just couldn't be super mom anymore. The kids all were willing to listen and we had a great weekend cleaning and organizing.

[angrykitty]

obviously this one was to teach a lesson. all of the berenstain bears books were preachy....that was the point, but some were more preachy than others......you forget to feed the dog once....