The Berenstain Bears No Girls Allowed by Stan Berenstain

She straggles behind them as they race down the lane and climb the bare limbs of a tree. The story begins: Sister Bear tags along with Brother Bear and his friends as they play. I wanted their blue-painted drawbridge, their frog pond moat. Though there was a girls’ version of a clubhouse near the end of the book, the boys’ forested haven was central: it was the epitome of effortless acceptance and belonging. No Girls Allowed was my favorite book in the Berenstain Bears series, the boys’ exclusive clubhouse splashed across the cover. The word Gender not even used in subject headings until 1993. The book’s Library of Congress catalog summary read, “Annoyed that Sister Bear always beats them at baseball and other boy-type activities, her brother and the other male cubs try to exclude her from their new club.” Its primary subject heading: Sex Role – Fiction. In 1986, Stan and Jan Berenstain published No Girls Allowed, the twenty-seventh book in their Berenstain Bears series.

A single yellow flag billowing from the shingles of a turret. A two-story clubhouse on its own island deep in the vine-strangled woods, six bear cubs peering out from the wooden slats of windows and a lone green door. Her gloating victory dances prompt the guys to build a secret clubhouse on an island in Frog Pond complete with a drawbridge, watchtowers and-can’t blame ‘em-a “NO GIRLS ALLOWED” sign.A blue-painted drawbridge. In “No Girls Allowed,” Sister wears a pink bow in her hair, but the stereotype ends there when she outruns, outclimbs, and wins all the marbles off her brother and his buddies.

In these new books, the Berenstains stray from the rhyming verse familiar from their “The Bike Lesson” and “The Bear Scouts,” using small-print narrative instead, with their typically cheerful drawings. Too much of a good thing is a moral perhaps intended for parents, though young readers are reminded of the importance “to learn, to have fun, to grow in every way.” But as it often is with “first times,” something backfires, and here it is the birthday girl who ends up sobbing. And bash it is with ponies, a merry-go-round, gifts, games (Spin the Bottle for 6-year-olds ?), prizes, a crowd of noisy friends, candy, cake, you name it. Now Mama and Papa Bear outdo themselves when their daughter turns 6 and they mastermind a bash, her very first party. What greater opportunity for parents to go overboard than at their child’s birthday? Nothing’s too good for Junior, but it might be too much as we learn from those funny Berenstain Bears of the pink-trimmed tree house who’ve entertained preschoolers for years with their mishaps.

The Berenstain Bears No Girls Allowed by Stan Berenstain