¹     Stan and Jan Berenstain are great authors. They are great illustrators, too. They created the Berenstain Bear family. They also created the beautiful Bear Country that Mama, Papa, and the cubs live in. But Stan and Jan didn't meet in a tree house down a sunny dirt road deep in Bear Country. They met in 1941 at art school. After Stan served in the army in World War II, they got married.
 
²     Once they were married, Stan began drawing cartoons. He sold his cartoons to magazines. Many people liked his cartoons. They became very popular. One day an editor saw one of Stan's cartoons. He was from New York. He wrote a letter to Mr. Berenstain. He asked him if he would like to write a book. Stan agreed. He and Jan wrote a cartoon book about raising a baby. This was a good book for them to write. He and Jan were new parents. They had a new baby boy named Leo.
 
³     Soon they had one more baby. Now they had two sons. Their boys loved books! Stan and Jan used to read many Dr. Seuss books to them. One day the Berenstains decided to write a children's story of their own. They submitted their story to Dr. Seuss's company. It was accepted. In 1962 The Big Honey Hunt was published. After that they wrote many "easy-to-read" books. In 1974 they began a new project. Stan and Jan started writing a new series. It was about normal things that children (and cubs!) experience. They started the new series with The Berenstain Bears and the New Baby. Their story was a hit!

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