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THE BEAR MUSEUM

Down a Sunny Dirt Road


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Janice Grant and Stanley Berenstain, both born in 1923, met on their first day at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art and it was love at first sight. They were virtually inseparable until Stan’s death in 2005. In true sign of their commitment they always worked as a team, sublimating their individual egos into a signature that simply read “the Berenstains.” They began their careers in the era of illustrated magazines, and soon found success drawing gag cartoons. In a short time, they were cover artists for the country’s leading magazines. Simultaneously they authored a highly successful series of humor books that shared a common theme: family.

Stan and Jan celebrated the joys and challenges of family life as the primary subject of their art for six decades. When they created the Bear family, it was the first series of children’s books in publishing history to follow the lives of a whole family, rather than just one member of the family. Their stories tales were inspired by their own childhood memories and their experiences as the parents of two sons, which they considered the best possible source material. As Stan once said, “We’re simply writing about family life and the issues that revolve around it.”

On the 40th anniversary of the Berenstain Bears in 2003, Stan and Jan published their autobiographical love story, Down a Sunny Dirt Road that lovingly recounts the story of their lives and the Bears, and how much each has influenced the other.


  • See October’s Bear Museum.
  • See November’s Bear Museum.
  • See December’s Bear Museum.
  • See January’s Bear Museum.


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