Books in PM Chapter Books series

Head for the hills! The ants are coming! Ferdy and Actual Factual's ant-breeding experiment backfires and Bear Country is overrun by a rapidly multiplying colony of nasty hybrid ants who will eat anything in very large mouthfuls! Beartown is in a panic, and Mayor Honeypot authorizes Actual Factual to hire Bugsy X Terminator, the local bug bear, to destroy the ants. "Who would have thought," muses Actual Factual, "that the very existence of Bear Country would be endangered by an ant?" "Or," as Ferdy aptly puts it, "an uncle." Uncle Factual, that is.

Illustrated by Debbie Tilley. Rosie is thrilled when her pet parakeet, Winky Blue, wins a talk show quiz on WFUN radio show in New York City. But when her beloved bird is disqualified and her best friend's pet gerbil gets stranded on top of the Empire State Building, it looks as though Rosie's hopes -- and Cinnamon the gerbil, are in for a big fall!

MarchThe Berenstain Bears andOnce again, the Berenstains have focused on a subject of great concern for parents and kids alike: guns. When Ferdy the nerd gets paired with Too-Tall the jock in an assignment to study inventions, the one subject they can agree on is guns. While Ferdy's interest is strictly intellectual, Too-Tall's is, unfortunately, basically bang-bang. Things come to a head at Bear Country School when Too-Tall brings in a monster squirt gun that looks an awful lot like the real thing. The whole class learns a valuable lesson: in the wrong hands, guns can be bad business--whether they are real or not.

There's a brand-new pool at Bear Country School, and all the cubs are raring to try out for the swim team. No one is more surprised than Sister Bear when she outswims every cub in every event--even the butterfly stroke! With visions of Bearlympics gold dancing in Papa Bear's furry head, he insists on being Sister's personal trainer as she prepares for the big meet. It's a decision that everyone in the Bear family will live to regret, for Papa--armed with his trusty clipboard, whistle, and stopwatch--will stop at nothing to achieve victory! Whoever said it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game . . . that sure wasn't Papa!

The way of the WarriorThe samurai warriors of ancient Japan were taught to fight with their hearts and minds as well as with their swords. But even the best of training doesn't prepare a samurai for every situation... A lone samurai is attacked by two Ronin--can he keep his head and come out of it alive? Can a samurai with a reputation for being unlucky to defeat a ferocious dragon and regain his honor? A brave girl fights tradition to learn swordmanship, but can she master the arts of the samurai?