Berenstain Bears’ Literary Agent Passes Away at 102
My family’s literary agent of sixty years, Sterling Lord, passed away at the age of 102. Sterling sold the very first Berenstain Bears book, The Big Honey Hunt, to Ted (Dr. Seuss) Geisel at Random House in 1961.
The Berenstain Bears’ 60th Anniversary
This month marks the 60th birthday of the first Bear book from Stan & Jan Berenstain, The Big Honey Hunt! Since 1962, Stan, Jan, and later Mike Berenstain would go on to publish over 500 books about the Bear family, translated into 20 different languages, with over 350 million books sold to date. The Berenstain Bears […]
Q&A with The Berenstain Bears
Here at Berenstain Studios we get a lot of questions from readers through fan mail, our social media pages, and in person. We asked our followers on social media what their biggest questions about the Bear Family were and we’ve picked a few to address here on the blog. Check out our the Questions and […]
Drawing Inspiration for the Berenstain Bears
There have been over 350 Berenstain bear books published, and at Berenstain studios we often get the question “How do you keep coming up with book ideas?” Sometimes the answer is re-cycling! Before Stan & Jan created the Bear books, they worked for years creating “Sister” and “All in the Family” cartoons for Colliers, Good […]
55 Years of the Berenstain Bears and the making of “The Big Honey Hunt”
September 28 Marks the 55th anniversary of the first Berenstain Bears book, The Big Honey Hunt published in 1962. Below is one of the first sketches of the Bears, found in the archives 5 years ago while getting ready for our 50th Anniversary. The Bear family has gone through lots of changes since 1962, but […]
Jan Berenstain’s War Years
In 1943, Soon after Stan left for the Army Jan Berenstain (then Jan Grant) took a break from her schooling at The Philadelphia Museum School for Industrial Arts (Now UArts) to begin training to be an aircraft riveter. She describes the decision in Stan & Jan’s Autobiography, Down a Sunny Dirt Road: “At the end […]
Mother’s Day with It’s All in the Family
For Mother’s Day we are revisiting Stan & Jan’s cartoon, All in the Family that ran for decades in McCall‘s and Good Housekeeping. These classic cartoons illustrate the ups and downs of Motherhood. We hope you give a big bear hug of appreciation to all of the Moms in your life this Mother’s Day!
Valentine’s Day with “It’s All in the Family”
Before The Big Honey Hunt was published in 1962–marking the beginning of the Berenstain Bears series–author-illustrators Stan and Jan Berenstain worked primarily as cartoonists. One of their most beloved series was “It’s All in the Family,” which featured a family of five (plus pets!) and ran for decades in McCall‘s and Good Housekeeping, as well […]
Tree House Trivia
About Our Name People are often curious about the spelling of “Berenstain,” a phenomenon that’s much older than the Bears themselves. As Stan Berenstain recalled in Down a Sunny Dirty Road, the 2002 autobiography he co-wrote with wife Jan, even his fourth grade teacher had questions: “On the very first morning, when [Miss McKinney] called […]
Announcing the Stan and Jan Berenstain Healthy Kids Foundation
We are pleased to announce the creation of the Stan and Jan Berenstain Healthy Kids Foundation. Formed by the Berenstain family to honor Stan and Jan’s memory, the Foundation is devoted to the funding of children’s health and well-being initiatives. Inspired by the childhood-celebrating and family-affirming message of Stan and Jan’s creative legacy, we are […]