Stan Berenstain, whose Berenstain Bear books – written and illustrated with his wife – helped millions of children learn to deal with trips to the dentist, the first day of school, and getting new siblings, died Saturday in Solebury, Pa. He was 82 and was suffering from cancer.

The renowned Berenstain Bear books helped children cope with all kinds of life experiences. Papa and Mama bear, along with their sometimes impish son and later a daughter, took readers along as they went on vacation, learned to share, and rode a bike for the first time. In more than 200 books over 40 years, the couple helped set the standard for children’s literature.

The series showed children – and parents – how to deal with a long list of childhood challenges, from watching less TV to overcoming the “gimmies” and not succumbing to the “in-crowd.” In the 1980s, the bear family moved into lessons about the environment and teenage drug use.

The first Berenstain Bears book, “The Big Honey Hunt,” was published in 1962. The couple developed the series with children’s author Theodor Geisel – also known as Dr. Seuss, then head of children’s publishing at Random House – with the goal of teaching children to read while entertaining them.

The series eventually expanded to include television specials, an interactive Web site, DVDs, and a Christmas musical. Despite changes in society in the last four decades, however, much stayed the same in “Bears Country.”

“Kids still tell fibs and they mess up their rooms and they still throw tantrums in the supermarket,” Stan Berenstain told the Associated Press in 2002. “Nobody gets shot. No violence. There are problems, but they’re the kind of typical family problems everyone goes through.”

Stan and Jan Berenstain began drawing together when they met at Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art in 1941.

The two married soon after he got out of World War II-era Army service and began submitting cartoons to magazines. They became contributors to The Saturday Evening Post, McCall’s, and Collier’s.

In their early years of collaboration, they wrote the “All in the Family” cartoon series for McCall’s and Good Housekeeping.

While raising their two sons, they started writing books on family humor, including “The Berenstain’s Baby Book” in 1951.

In 1962, they began an association with Geisel, who suggested that they write for the juvenile market.