Parents' Guide to

The Berenstain Bears Go on a Ghost Walk

By Dana Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 4+

Halloween book sends message that too scary isn't much fun.

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What you will—and won't—find in this app.

Community Reviews

age 5+

Based on 1 parent review

age 5+

Strange Halloween tale feels like it's aimed at parents/teens

The narration in these read-along apps is usually very well done, but I don't like this one. The narrator here sounds like they are doing voice-over for a commercial, rather than telling a story. I typically do not like the heavy-handed moralizing in the Berenstain Bears stories, but this one misses the mark even more than usual. The idea that one person's fun may be scary to another would be more relatable to children in a story about children. Perhaps one child wants to do something daring, but the other is nervous about it. Trying to get that message across in a book about an adult getting too into decorating a school charity event for Halloween (including words like "festooned") is a little odd. What is the target age range for this? It's very confusing, and any enjoyment preschoolers and early readers get will be incidental (liking the pictures, or being amused by the Halloween festivities, or just clicking on all the new vocabulary). Accessed through Amazon FreeTime Unlimited. I definitely would pass on buying this.

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Easy to play/use

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1 ):
Kids say: Not yet rated

Especially for kids who love Halloween but don't like costumes that are too gory and scary, BERENSTAIN BEARS GO ON A GHOST WALK affirms the sensibility that blood and guts costumes don't mean fun for everyone. The Berenstain Bears stories are classics, and this one weaves the Halloween tale around the same basic storyline of many Bear Family stories with a moral: Papa goes overboard on an idea, and Mama and cubs reel him back in with some common sense. There are many interactive images that kids can touch while reading this story or having the story read to them by a narrator, but the interactivity is limited to spooky sounds and words that match the image touched appearing on screen. There's no movement to the interactivity, which would have been a nice addition.

App Details

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