The Berenstain Bears: Safe and Sound! Book

Skateboarding safety gear is radical.

I don't know why anybody in Bear Country ever trusts Too-Tall Grizzly. Why?! You know he's the leader of the schoolyard gang, he's a bully, and he's always going to try to get you into trouble. Why? You would think after maybe once or twice of this kind of thing happening, people would just stop trusting him. He would be a pariah. But no, he's always just hanging around, and everybody goes, "Huh! Maybe he's got a good idea this time!" Maybe the bears are just all idiots.

I don't really know what to say about this. At least it's got a storyline, so that's good. It seems like takes them almost no time at all to build a skate park, but maybe it's supposed to be happening over a few days. It does make a lot of sense, because it has been established in other books that Papa is a carpenter. That's his job. He would be able to build that kind of thing.

Brother and Sister head off to go skateboarding, but Mama makes them take their safety gear first. They go down to the schoolyard and try to go skateboarding there, but they can't anymore, because the principal says it's too dangerous to skateboard when the teachers aren't there to watch them. Realistically, it would also be because of legal issues, but that's left out. Too-Tall Grizzly shows up and says, "Hey! I've got my own skate park! A secret skate park in the middle of the woods! But you can't wear safety gear." So they take the safety gear off, and then Too-Tall falls over and lands in a sticker bush and Brother and Sister sneak off because they think wearing safety gear is a good idea. Their dad says, "Hey, let's build our own skate park!" And so they do, and a whole bunch of people show up and help them out, and they open it and it's the Official Bear Country Skate Park, and Mayor Honeypot comes to the opening. Safety gear must be worn at all times, and Too-Tall Grizzly wears it, too. Ha, ha, ha.

How big is Bear Country, anyway? They took a fricking road trip around it in another book, complete with their own version of Mount Rushmore and Niagara Falls, and now they've got the Official Skate Park in somebody's cow pasture. That's impressive.

The best part: "'How many fingers can you see?" asked Brother, holding up three fingers. 'Uh... twelve?' guessed Too-Tall, his eyes rolling around.

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