Reading With Interrupting Him and Her

We have been reading a lot of Berenstain Bears books of late.  (The B. Bears, as Julie likes to call them.)  We own a few of them, but recently checked out a treasury of five or so from the library.  Julie thinks they are in a treasury because they aren't classics of the series.  In any case, they feel like they are on their way to becoming Raleigh House classics.  In any case, this B. Bears frenzy has coincided with with Joe insisting on every last word on the page being read. Is there a picture of someone laughing punctuated with a "Heh heh heh!"?  (The B. Bears and the New Baby.)  Is there a chart with chores meted out for acts of rudeness?  (The B. Bears Forget Their Manners.)  What we need is a volume entitled The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble With Interrupting, though incidentally interrupting is an infraction highlighted in The B. Bears Forget Their Manners, though despite reading it 57 times in the past two weeks, this reporter cannot recall the punishment.  (But name calling--the ultimate in misbehavior down a sunny dirt road in Bear Country--is cleaning out the cellar.  And if you think it's easy keeping a cellar clean in a tree house, well, you've never tried it.  So says The B. Bears and the Messy Room.)

The B. Bears craze has also coincided with Clara beginning to tack down gendered pronouns.  There was rather a lot of stopping for a while to denote him and her and you can see, can't you, how it would be rather a lot in a book with a Papa Bear ("That's a him."), Mama Bear ("That's a her."), Brother Bear ("That's a him."), and Sister Bear ("That's a her.").  Mercifully, she seems to have got at least the Family Bear sorted.

Clara also liked to read herself sometimes.  Oh, never mind you mind, Dear Readers, you, that she's also still tacking down the alphabet.  Our Birdie has never let anything like her actual abilities stand in the way of her ambitions.  Tonight, Julie--and Clara--read a Cars pre-reader called Old, New, Red, Blue.  It is a scintillating exploration of opposites using characters and scenes from Cars: "Old truck.  New car.  Red truck.  Blue car.  Shiny and bright.  Dull and brown."  Eventually, one reaches "Dirty car."

You know what comes next, Brigade.  Birdie did, too, and she used context to fill it right in: "Get.  A.  Car.  Wash."  Naturally The Professor was quick to interrupt with "No!  CLEAN CAR!"