Each picture book in the Lima Bear Stories series delivers messages for children to help them handle everyday situations with siblings and friends, including tolerance, honesty, and courage. Basic characters, each with their own distinct personality, appear and reappear throughout the series, allowing children to get to know them and anticipate how they are likely to act in different situations. Extended learning and activity questions are included to allow parents and teachers to further encourage children to become involved in the concepts presented.
When L. Joe Bean has been captured by the cave monster, his cousin Lima Bean and friends enter the dangerous Black Cave to rescue him. When the cave monster attacks, they come together to save L. Joe Bean in time—and themselves. The primary concept presented in the story is that friends, individually afraid, find courage acting together.
