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“Computers have their uses - they're great for work or play. But it's not a good idea just to stare at them all day!”
Opening quote

The Berenstain Bears' Computer Trouble is a book in the Berenstain Bears series. It was published by HarperCollins on September 14, 2010.

Summary[]

When Papa brings home a brand-new computer to use for his furniture business, printing bills, and doing taxes, he finds that Brother and Sister had been using it to play video games. Once everyone gets their own computer, the family spends more time using them rather than finding other things to do. Papa then comes up with a plan to get them back into reality.

Plot[]

Papa comes home with a brand new computer to use for his furniture business, printing bills, and doing his taxes. One day, he notices that Brother and Sister had been using his computer to play video games, then decides to get everyone their own computer. The cubs then use their own computers to engage in social networking, Mama wanted her own computer for e-Bear after she discovered buying and selling things, and Honey used a toy computer to play simple video games.

One afternoon, Papa comes in from his workshop with a headache after he started at his computer screen for too long. He goes upstairs to find someone to talk to, then heads into Sister's room to find her crying. According to Sister, a cub named Billy Grizzwold wrote on her Pawbook page that Sister is a "fuzzy-faced hair ball" and now all of her friends are saying that she and Billy are in love. Before he helped Sister with her Pawbook page, Papa heard loud music coming from Brother's room and went in there to find him looking at soccer gear instead of doing his homework. Brother quickly shows Papa that he's doing his homework while checking out websites. In the hallway, Papa sees Honey playing a game on her computer and Mama bidding on something on e-Bear just as the doorbell rang.

At the front door, Herb, the mailbear, gives Papa a package for Mama from e-Bear then tells him that it is the fifth package she got that week. Papa realizes that there is too much computer trouble then comes up with a plan. After dinner that same evening, Papa announces to the family that everyone is spending too much time on their computers that they don't have time to greet each other nowadays. He shows them the evening newspaper with a header that reads "Internet Child Safety Problems" and how people are using the internet to get cubs to do dangerous things. He decides to turn off the internet except for one hour each day, adding that if the cubs can't get done what they need to do, it's not worth doing.

Papa then suggests the many things that the cubs could do while they are outside. After school the next day, Brother and Sister go visit Cousin Fred and Lizzy Bruin and got them to leave their computers to come out and play with them. The cubs then go to the playground to find many other cubs playing. After dinner, Brother and Sister spent an hour online and find that there were plenty of things to do in time. Papa was able to concentrate on his woodwork, and Mama, who was freed from the e-Bear spell, got back into quilting. When the internet hour ended, the family gathered in the living room to spend time together then started talking about a lot of things.

Sister talked about how Billy Grizzwold apologized for calling Sister a "fuzzy-faced hair ball", Brother talked about his corner kick into the goal at soccer practice, Mama explains her plans for making new quilts, and Papa talks about how he had gotten into using the batch of curly maple wood he had in his shop. Everyone then went to bed. The next evening, the Bear family decided to go to the movie theater to watch Spider-Bear while Honey was left with Grizzly Gramps and Gran.

Notes/Trivia[]

  • The book contains numerous references to actual websites and properties...
    • e-Bear is a parody of eBay, a popular online auction site.
    • Pawbook is a parody of Facebook, a popular social media network.
    • Spider-Bear is a parody of the Marvel comic series Spider-Man, specifically spoofing Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies of the 2000s.
    • Two other movie choices Papa Bear recommends before the cubs decide on Spider-Bear include Pirates of the Bearibbean (spoofing Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movies) and Beary Potter (spoofing the Harry Potter book and film series).
  • Even though the book was written, illustrated and published in 2010, the Bear family's computers are depicted as big boxy desktop PC towers with large CRT monitors. Computers like this were very rare in real life by 2010, being more common in the 1990s and early 2000s.
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