The Berenstain Bears' Trouble with Money

This is a decent book for its target audience, with good basic information for young children on earning and spending money, and prioritizing expenses or saving money. There certainly is a lot more to financial management than what's in this book, but for its target audience, the lesson in this book helps to lay a solid foundation that can be built upon.

This is a good book for elementary students. Brother and Sister spend money carelessly. Mother Bear is very concerned. Father Bear finally gets angry. The bear cubs then learn how to earn money, but they may have gone too far to do it. What I like best about this book are the idioms that Father Bear uses when he is angry. This would be a good book to introduce children to idioms, while simultaneously teaching a lesson about the spending and earning of money.

One of the first lessons I can remember learning from Stan & Jan Berenstain is how to handle money well. It's weird but this book made me think about the fact that I have never missed a payment on any of my bills in my adult life. I don't know how much this book had to do with it but I will still thank them for my awesome credit!

A must have for library story times because every child will be faced with an allowance and it is best to teach them young.

This book is a GREAT book to teach kids about money, savings, income, profit, etc. It depicts an imaginary story about the little cubs having a hard time saving their money. They don't understand the importance of it and want to spend it on everything. So they start producing several goods and services, making quite the profit. Then, at the end of the story, they create a savings account, finally realizing what if means to save money. Also touches on figures of speech quite frequently.
Genre: Fantasy

Summary:
This fantasy book starts with Brother Bear And Sister Bear not fully understanding the entire concept of money. Although they get the spending aspect the don't seem to get that once you spend it it's all gone, so you should spend it wisely. All the money they've acquired so far has just been given to them so Mama Bear feels that they should start earning an allowance, but Papa Bear disagrees. It isn't until Brother and Sister waste all their money on a video game that Papa then agrees with Mama. Papa makes them earn their and wonders if they now think that money is the most important thing, which isn't a good lesson either. The cubs surprise him by giving him all their earned money to him so him and Mama wouldn't have to worry show more about money anymore. The family goes to the bank and puts the money away to save it for the cubs.

Personal Reaction:
I liked this book I thought it was a nice way of explaining money and how it is more complex than it seems. When I was little I was really good at saving I always liked to see how much money I could save, I hated spending my money. My sister on the other hand was like the cubs she couldn't wait to spend it as soon as she got it.

Classroom Extension Ideas:
1. I think this a good lesson on explaining that money can make problems if you don't know how to handle it wisely.
2. With the economy being the way it is obviously little ones don't understand it, but they probably hear about it all the time from family, so I think if we talked about the differences of money to a kid verses an adult maybe it would help them to understand why they might here negative things about it like the cubs did.
3. Having a class project were the students could earn fake money for good grades and helping out around the classroom and getting the chance to save it or spend it at a class store. show less

This book is great for young readers and read alouds. This book introduces third person dialogue, descriptive money terms that young children may not be familiar with yet and a fun, easy way to making them aware of the importance of managing money. All important life skills.

I loved The Berenstain Bears as a child, and I'm thrilled that my children love them too. We've had Berenstain Bear books and movie/videos in our collection for years.... each of my 5 children have loved them, and has gone through a Berenstain Bears phase at some point..... my youngest, 7, is currently in this phase. These books are part of our bedtime reading every night