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Stan and Jan Berenstain (often called The Berenstains) were American writers and illustrators best known for creating the children's book series the Berenstain Bears.

Stanley "Stan" Berenstain (September 29, 1923 — November 26, 2005), was born in a neighborhood of west Philadelphia, and died of cancer in Solebury Township, Pennsylvania. Janice "Jan" Berenstain (Janice Grant) (born July 26, 1923), was born in Philadelphia, and was raised in west Philadelphia and the suburb of Radnor. They met on their first day of class at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art in 1941 and married five years later, on April 13, 1946. They had two sons, Leo and Mike.

In an interview about the books, the Berenstains said that a big reason behind their inspiration was some of the difficulties parents faced, as well as some childhood tribulations when they were kids themselves. Their books evolved to include items such as cell phones and video game systems in the fictional Bear Country, which were nonexistent (or very limited), when the books were first commissioned. The Berenstains also noted there were some issues which seemed to appear in every generation, such as kids throwing tantrums in public places, which made important subject matters for their stories. However, they deliberately wanted to steer clear of overly heavy issues such as violence.

In 1951, they published "Berenstains' Baby Book," which dealt with the topics of pregnancy and raising a young child. Although containing practical advice, the book used humor and reminded parents not to take every situation too seriously.

They produced together the magazine cartoon featureIt's All in the Family from 1956 to 1989 in McCall's and Good Housekeeping. They published their first book featuring the Berenstain Bears in 1962 and with the help of then-head of children's publishing at Random House Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) created a lasting franchise including many more books, television series, toys, and stage productions. Jan was inducted into Radnor High School's Hall of Fame on October 20, 2006.

The Berenstains' comic strip It's All in the Family (unrelated to the later TV series of that name) appeared regularly in McCall's magazine, and depicted the antics of a suburban family with mother, father, eldest and youngest sons, and middle daughter. It's All in the Family was not a conventional comic strip in the sense of a sequential progression of panels. Each issue featured a single situation, often seasonally appropriate: such as the daughter preparing, cooking and serving a family meal for the first time, or the costume preparations, rehearsal and performance of the youngest child's Christmas pageant. Within a given issue, each It's All in the Family drawing was a stand-alone panel with a caption gag, rather than one panel of a sequential strip, but individual panels in order depicted the complete arc (preparation, completion, aftermath) of this issue's family experience.

Stan and Jan Berenstains' younger son Michael Berenstain (born in 1951) is a writer/illustrator, and also illustrated many of the books written by his parents. He continues to work with his mother on new projects.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Stan and Jan Berenstain", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0