Bothered by the fact that boys and girls are treated differently in the extracurricular activities at Bear Country School, Queenie McBear decides to get some changes made.
Brother and Sister Bear don't realize the problems they will face when they agree to help Professor Actual Factual's super-smart nephew fit in at school.
Harry, a new student at Bear Country School who is disabled and uses a wheelchair, has trouble making friends until the others discover that he is really very much like them.
Even though they are not into rad fashions, Brother Bear and Sister Bear join the other cubs' protest when Mr. Grizzmeyer enforces a strict dress code at Bear Country School.
Sister Bear interviews her grandmother for a school assignment, Gran decides to enter her old vaudeville act in the school talent show, and Gramps moves into the gardening shed.
Frustrated by their lack of artistic freedom on the staff of the school newspaper, Brother Bear and his friends start an underground paper and discover some basic truths about freedom of the press and responsibility.
When Brother's class studies birds, the citizens of Bear Country end up choosing sides in a battle between environmentalists and those who want to cut down the trees in Birder's Woods to build houses.
When recent acts of shoplifting at the mall make store owners suspicious of the bear cubs who hang out there, the cubs decide to find out who the real shoplifters are.
Farmer Ben takes a dim view of the cubs' plan to hold a Halloween Festival to help save his floundering family farm, and the situation is complicated when a couple of Ben's dead ancestors show up.