Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Berenstain Bears Patience, Please (Berenstain Bears/Living Lights: A Faith Story)

Top positive review

B.C.M.

CUTE!

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2019

A really cute book. Brother and Sister are taught the value of hard work and patience - and there's a really nice little "subplot" with Honey. A nice addition to the Living Lights Christian series.

5 people found this helpful

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go1908cubs

Don’t bother buying this one

Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2019

If you grew up loving the Berenstain Bear books and now are sharing that with your children , I wouldn’t bother with this one. So don’t bother ordering Berenstain Bears “Patience, please”. It really doesn’t instill a lesson of patience, in fact the book seems super rushed, and then just quotes the Book of James from the Bible as if that clears things up. The lesson isn’t good either... Brother and Sister do all this hard work and then Honey just throws her wildflower seeds around and runs off to play and HERS grow best. And the artwork doesn’t have the same detail as Stan and Jan original series did. I miss that. The artwork and writing just seem kind of thrown together quickly to sell books, not taking the time to teach kids a lesson. Oh and the one about losing a pet also completely falls flat on the lesson too. A bust. I’ll be returning these.

62 people found this helpful

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From the United States

go1908cubs

Don’t bother buying this one

Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2019

Verified Purchase

62 people found this helpful

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Natalie

Womp, womp

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2019

Verified Purchase

I really wanted to love this. We have a huge library of BB books, our 4 year old enjoys them and seems to gain a lot from their lessons, and as with most 4 year olds, she has zero sense of patience. Anyway, I felt like it was a swing and a miss.
Also, I can appreciate the religious undertone that is found in some of the books, but this one was very blatant with Mama and Papa quoting verses from the bible. It's not the worst thing, but seemed glaringly different than the other books.
Also, the part with Honey bear just throwing her seeds around haphazardly and being rewarded with a great flower garden was just weird and lost on me.
It's too bad, because learning patience is a really important part of growing up, and I think this could have been written much better. It just fell flat.

28 people found this helpful

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Gene Parmesan

An Evangelical Cash Grab

Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2020

Verified Purchase

This book is basically just a couple of Bible verses wrapped in a lazy story that trades off of a famous brand.

I wouldn't care about quoting the Bible if the story was actually any good. But this is not well written, even for a children's book.

There are lots of people who will pay for crap as long as it quotes the Bible and doesn't offend their delicate Evangelical sensibilities. This book is that kind of crap.

20 people found this helpful

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B.C.M.

CUTE!

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2019

Verified Purchase

A really cute book. Brother and Sister are taught the value of hard work and patience - and there's a really nice little "subplot" with Honey. A nice addition to the Living Lights Christian series.

5 people found this helpful

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Adam Gilson

Same Name, Poor Quality

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2020

Verified Purchase

I'm not sure where to begin with this book.

I bought it without doing much research into it as I assumed it would follow in the tradition of the Stan and Jan Berenstain Bear books.

I was very wrong.

Where to begin?

I think a more effective story about teaching patience might start with twenty illustrated pages of someone staring at a kettle waiting for it to boil. That has a cohesive, linear story to follow that is about two notches more interesting than this story.

Spoilers:

Also, Honey Bear, or as I call her, Lazy Caricature of A Hippie in 2019 Used To Make Some Kind of Nebulous Point About Faith Bear, has a story arc that just makes no sense. This is highlighted by my three year old son asking, at the part where all of her flowers blossomed without her taking care of them at all, "How did that grow?"

If a three year old is picking out plot holes, you might have a poorly written story.

More than that, what is even the point of Honey Bear's arc in this story? She threw her seeds at untilled soil, disappears for a 1/3rd of the book, then shows up inside a bed of flowers. Is there a metaphor here I'm missing?

As other 1 star reviewers had mentioned, they don't mind Bible verses unless they are used in lieu of writing an actual meaningful story. I'm going to agree with that.

Using the Bible quotes within the context of this story is a literal deus ex machina that is the antithesis of some of the great, character driven early Berenstain Bear books (No Girls Allowed comes immediately to mind).

Also, the story is called "Patience Please." But the children who show patience are given paltry returns and the one kid (Honey Bear) who clearly has no concept of time or concern for learning self reliance (what Papa says they'll learn) gets a gorgeous patch of flowers. Was she out there at night watering them? Did she sing to them in the mornings? Did she plant them on a Native American burial ground? I feel like the draft from another story got shoehorned into this one.

And on a personal note. Sister Bear has to be nearing her teenage years. I can't imagine a girl that age still wearing that silly polka dot shirt and pink overalls. It's oddly infantilizing and vaguely disconcerting.

7 people found this helpful

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Laura St julien

Love the reference of biblical verses

Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2020

Verified Purchase

I grew up on the Berenstain books! I read this book to my four-year-old daughter and she loves it. I love the fact that it reference the book of James at the end! I discussed with my daughter about how God wants us all to have patience in the meaning of what it is! This is a great book. I will definitely order more.

One person found this helpful

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