Thursday, March 3, 2005 | 8:18 a.m.
A little under the weather and taller than most, Michael Berenstain seemed slightly amused last week as he watched a group of second graders race past at the Lied Discovery Children's Museum.
Despite Berenstain's talents, famous parents and artistic achievements, he wasn't the main attraction here.
Praise and adulation went fully to his relatives, characters with whom he's shared most of his life: Mama, Papa, Sister and Brother - the round-bodied, furry bears that have been used to translate Berenstain's own family experiences and observations into easy-to-read moral stories.
"It's the first time I've watched kids using this," Berenstain said, referring to the re-created rooms from the Berenstain Tree House that were occupied by a slew of second graders from nearby Halle Hewetson Elementary School.
If the Berenstains were to write it, this story would be summed up as such: Museum bears in Las Vegas collaborate with other museum bears (from the Bay Area to Brooklyn, N.Y.) to create an interactive exhibit that will tour nationally.
The tour would bring lots of bear visitors to the local museum, national exposure and, possibly, better funding opportunities in the future.
"Anytime we get national exposure, it helps when we're going for funding, especially when they know you reach national audiences," said Suzanne LeBlanc, executive director of the Lied Discovery Children's Museum, which teamed with the Berenstain family to create a three-dimensional, interactive exhibit for children.
The exhibit, "Growing Up With the Berenstain Bears," on display through Aug. 28, takes young visitors into the world of the Berenstain Bears. In addition to the rooms re-created from the pages of the famed books, the built-to-use exhibit features educational segments, including math and English exercises, lessons in manners and working to confront fear, exploring career options and role-playing.
The effort began four years ago and cost roughly $300,000. It is the museum's first traveling exhibit, created as part of the Youth Museum Exhibit Collaborative, a nonprofit organization composed of nine youth museums throughout the country.
"We send them exhibits. They send us exhibits," LeBlanc said. "After that, we own the exhibit. We can keep it here or rent it.
"It's a very big step for the museum to create something that is going to travel around. We hope to follow it up with others."
Bear essentials
Pennsylvania artists Stan and Jan Berenstain have been creating Berenstain Bears books since 1962 when they published "The Big Honey Hunt." More than 250 Berenstain Bears books have been published since.
Berenstain, whose parents were his art teachers, has also illustrated more than 40 Berenstain Bears books and has written his own.
"I was about 10 in 1962 when they started the books," Berenstain said. "Since I grew up with it, it's very familiar work to me.
"My younger daughter, when she was a toddler, thought (the bears) were related to her."
From their First Time Books to Big Chapter Books, the Berenstains incorporate issues involving sharing, teasing, homework, polluting, cleaning house, trouble at school, new neighbors, bullies and popularity.
"We try to do issues we feel are important to deal with," Berenstain said. "So much of what we do in the books comes out of real life."
"The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Sinister Smoke Ring" deals with smoking. "The Berenstain Bears and No Guns Allowed" deals with water guns.
There is also "The Birds, the Bees and the Berenstain Bears."
Stan and Jan Berenstain, now in their 80s, are still working. Five new titles were published by HarperCollins in January.
For Hannah Rengel, the show's exhibit developer, the most important element of research and development was to capture the theme of the books.
"I possibly know everything about the Berenstain Bears and possibly Stan and Jan's entire life," Rengel said.
Of the books, Rengel said, "A lot of parents used them because they have a lot of moral values, moral lessons."
One of the books, in which pandas had moved in across the street, addressed racism.
"It was a topic of 'Do we play with them because they're different from us?' " Rengel said.
Go bears
The exhibit at the children's museum includes a schoolroom setting where children practice writing and math. There's a cave where children confront their fears.
One exhibit encourages children to pick out an outfit to dress for work. Choices include a firefighter, police officer, airline pilot and astronaut.
The entire exhibit is bilingual. Multiple-choice questions help handle possible situations, such as what to do if "you break mom's favorite lamp." Do you: "Tell her you're sorry a billion times"; "Clean up quick! She might not notice"; or "Try gluing it back together"?
At one station, visitors can help Stan and Jan finish their new book by creating a page to follow the already-written sequence. At another, visitors can share the experience of their worst mistake or decide what to do if he or she saw her best friend stealing at a store.
When writing the books, Berenstain said, "We take things on a case-by-case basis. Whatever comes up that will make a good book.
"My parents have a knack for abstract ideas and making some concrete realism you can understand. Bears are good vehicles. We want them to be able to understand the subject, how to prepare for, assimilate the process and understand it."
When publicists approached them and asked them to write about "stranger danger," Berenstain explained, "My parents said, 'How could that be funny? That's a serious issue.' But that's one of our most popular books.
"The gun one we did after Columbine. The publisher asked us to do that. It was really about toy guns and the issue in schools. But some viewed it as an anti-gun book."
Overall, he said, "I don't think we deal with a lot of controversial issues."
Regarding the current event of war, he said, "I think that's way too serious for us.
"We don't deal with tsunamis. War and disaster, we don't go there. We don't have a view of ourselves that we can solve the world's problems."
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