Ready to Play!: A Tale of Toys and Friends, and Barely Any Bickering Book

I think this is the first I Can Read Berenstain Bear book, and I must not have realized what that meant when I added it 3 years ago. Their picture books tend to be the best, and I discovered I don't like this I Can Read format. Every other line rhymed in that poem style that can translate well to kid's books but didn't here because the sentences were so simple. This is geared towards kindergarten and kids first learning to read short sentences, so the Berenstains weren't at their best.

The worst rhymes for me were:
"Wake up! Wake up,
Papa Bear!
The pilot says
we're almost there."
"Please stay in your seats. Do not stand.
We are about
to land."

"We've got horses,
cattle,
a barn, of course.
This is Red,
my favorite horse."
It was really weak to me to start out talking about horses and then end up talking about horses again. You already mentioned horses, another rhyming word needs to be found so you're not repeating things.

"Cubs, I have ponies
for you to ride.
But first, meet Aunt Min,
my lovely bride."
You don't usually call a woman a bride, unless it's on her wedding day...she would be called his wife but I know they did that to rhyme.

"Red is frisky, as I said.
But be my guest.
You go to it."
"No, Papa! No!
Do not do it."
Seemed like longer, stronger sentences could have been formed that still rhymed. These were way too simple.

Uncle Tex's horse looked so mean, eyebrows drawn down looking like it wanted to kill someone, so I wondered why that was his favorite horse. Also, there was a snot-green pony and I couldn't believe that color was chosen for a horse. Horses don't look like that!

The cover made it looked like it was going to be such a wild west adventure, but it wasn't. Papa immediately decided he could handle Red, except the horse bucked him off and he landed on a cactus. Nothing was made of it; it just showed him dangling over a cactus arm. I thought it would show him covered in needles, but it didn't, and then they were going for a ride. It was a missed opportunity.

I liked the title page showing the image of a cowboy bear bearing down on horseback. It had the western spirit. The book really picked up once they went on their ride in the wilderness. Each page had multiple images, showing parts of the terrain. There were canyons, cliffs, ridges, the Painted Desert (which could have been better because it was only an orange cliff with a smudge of red on it, and natural bridges. I liked how there was an image of each type.

But my favorite part was
"Now think of the things
that are no longer here--
the hopes and dreams of yesteryear.
"And if you use your mind's eye,
you can almost see them
in the sky.
"Pony Express riders
brave and bold,
folks who came west
to pan for gold,
great bison herds
and wagon trains
that reached across
the western plains."

I loved the faint images of the Pony Express rider from the title page, fiercely riding his horse, and the gold miners panning for gold by a stream, each down on their knees holding a pan. They showed a big bison herd, and trains of covered wagons being pulled by cows. That was the best part of the book. The sentences got longer and better with better choices in wording.

But then as Uncle Tex said, the spell was broken, and they left to go have Aunt Min's bbq.

There was a nice image of them all sitting at a picnic table looking out into the desert, a coyote howling on a cliff and the big white moon over the horizon.

It was a bit disappointing because I expected a lot more. If the rest of the book had been like those 4 pages I would have felt better about it and rated it higher. It didn't have enough western flair for me and the writing wasn't as good as their other works.