Happy new year everyone! What have I been doing over the holiday season? Oh not much just finishing all of Junie B Jones. I’m not even done yet, but I’ve read all the mainline books and I really wanna get this article up on time. I missed December and all.

“Why would you subject yourself to all this?” many of my local kidlit friends have asked. In my deep dive into chapter books, I decided to go back to the “classics”. Junie’s still in print, so she must be doing something right. That something is basically everything.

Premise

Junie’s a not great kid with not great parents. She goes to a school with not great friends and a not great teacher. But everyone tries and everyone is super real. Normal people aren’t perfect, and Junie B is a very normal person.

Characters

A small note: Junie’s series is so long she graduates from Kindergarten into First Grade in book 18. I’ll note which characters are relevant to which grade.

Juniper Beatrice Jones (or just Junie B. as she prefers to be called) is not a very nice kid. She’s selfish. She talks back to everyone. Her speech and grammar aren’t great. She calls her grandparents by their first names. And that’s all okay.

In first grade she gets glasses. She doesn’t have those in kindergarten.

Grace Allen is one of Junie’s best friends in kindergarten. She doesn’t really get a lot of characterization, apart from being in Junie’s group of friends alongside Lucille. You’ll notice Lucille isn’t next. There’s a reason for that.

When Junie gets to first grade, Grace isn’t in her class. They still ride the bus together, but Grace made new friends, so she can’t be friends with Junie anymore. Harsh.

I talked about Susan and Robert Jones a bit in my Parents in Kidlit article, but I’ll reiterate it here. Junie’s mom is pretty mean, and yells at Junie a lot in kindergarten. Some of this “yelling” might be Junie exaggerating, but a lot of the time it’s pretty clear her mom doesn’t put up with any of her antics. Her dad is very passive, and is nicer to Junie, but still can be stern when it comes down to it. Not a very hospitable environment.

I’ll tangent here to briefly mention that Junie also has a little brother (Ollie) and a dog (Tickle). Ollie is a baby most of the series, who Junie doesn’t appreciate for a long time. Tickle I think matters once in one small scene in one book ever. They’re hardly ever mentioned. Her stuffed elephant (Phillip Johnny Bob) is more important than Tickle.

Grampa Frank Miller (and Grandma Helen Miller, not pictured) babysit Junie after school a lot, since her parents work. They both are pretty nice to Junie, especially Grampa.

Mrs. is Junie’s kindergarten teacher. Her real name is never revealed, because Junie likes calling her Mrs. Like Junie’s parents, Mrs. doesn’t put up with Junie at all, and regularly sends her to the Principal’s office. She seems to not like her job very much, as evidenced by the many asides of her sighing or taking headache medicine.

Jim is kind of a bully character in Junie’s kindergarten class. He constantly points out when she’s wrong, in not-so-nice terms. Unlike the other kind of mean people in her life, Jim is her age, so Junie makes sure to tell Jim off and be mean back every time Jim mouths off.

Mr. Scary is Junie’s first grade teacher. He’s a lot more stern than Mrs. and has a lot more control over his classroom. Thankfully for Junie, she’s gotten a bit more mature since kindergarten, and doesn’t get sent to the principal’s office once. This might be a bit of credit to Mr. Scary himself, since he tries to help Junie through her issues a lot more than Mrs. did.

May Murkee is the only new student in Junie’s first grade class that Junie gives a nickname to. She’s the Jim of first grade, but instead of being a mean bully, she’s a tattletale bully. Every single time Junie does anything May even suspects is a problem, she’ll tell Mr. Scary. This gets so bad at one point, that Mr. Scary calls May out on tattletaling and tells her to stop.

May’s actually a really interesting character and would probably be my favorite if a certain other character didn’t exist. We find out later on that she actually has no friends. Book 25 (the Christmas one) is one of the only times she’s happy, because she likes Christmas so much she doesn’t let anyone spoil it for her. I’m really surprised this main above image is her smiling.

Herb Jacob becomes Junie’s best friend in first grade. They both take the bus together, so they have a lot of time to talk. Herb (and most of the boys in Junie’s class) like Junie’s no-nonsense attitude.

This is Lucille, the best character in Junie B Jones, bar none. She’s rich (like loaded), as you might have seen from her nickname, and she never stops talking about it. She’s also the only secondary character that is in both Junie’s Kindergarten and First Grade class (Roger doesn’t count).

I could discuss how Lucille is probably there to show the class divide between herself, Junie, and Grace. I could talk about how, despite her wealth and upbringing, she’s still a normal kid with normal kid friends that goes to a normal kid school. I mostly want to talk about how hilarious she is when she’s being herself. She always says or does just a little bit more than she needs to, because she’s that extra. And she’s always genuine about it. Feel free to skip ahead to the next section, if you don’t want to start the Cool Stuff section early:

• In book 14, Lucille said when she marries an expensive prince Junie and Grace could sweep her castle and wear her raggedy used-up gowns.
• Lucille flounced her flouncy dress.
  “Silly Grace. Look at me, for goodness’ sake! I am precious! And when you’re precious, boys automatically bring you lots of valentines. They just can’t help theirselves.”
• Lucille looked admiring at me. “That is very smart of you, Junie B.,” she said. “You should be on Cops.”
• Me and Lucille and that Grace sat on a blanket and opened our lunch bags.
  “Yum,” I said. “Egg salad.”
  “Yum,” said that Grace. “Tuna salad.”
  “Yum,” said Lucille. “Crab salad on a flaky croissant, with a side order of greens in a light raspberry vinaigrette dressing.”
• Then, all of a sudden, Lucille stood up. And she fluffed her fluffy dress.
  “Well guess what? I don’t really care what the tooth fairy does with the teeth. All I care about is how much money she leaves.”
  She looked at Room One. “You’re nothing without money, people. Remember that.” she said.
• Lucille stood up at her desk. She flounced her dress very upset. Then she plopped back down again.
• Me
  Richie Lucille
  Shopping, buying, spending.
  Everyone’s jealous of myself.
  Princess
  After she was finished, Mr. Scary sat there for a second.
  Then he smiled and nodded.
  “Good, Lucille. Yes. Excellent.,” he said. “That poem really says it all, doesn’t it?”
  Lucille nodded. “Yes,” she said. “It does.”
• All of the children’s mouths fell open.
  Except for, not richie Lucille’s.
  Instead, Lucille stretched her arms in the air. And she did a giant yawn.
  “Hawaii. Ho-hum. Been there…done that,” she said real bored.
  Then she stood up.
  And she twirled around.
  And she sat back down again.
• “Wait till you see this, children!” she said. “I brought something that everyone in the whole world is thankful for! And I have LOTS and LOTS of it!”
  After that, she turned the big, giant purse upside down.
  And wowie wow wow!
  Out came…
  “MONEY!” shouted Lucille. “MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! I AM THANKFUL FOR MONEY!”
  
  (She actually proceeds to dump an entire bag of money onto the ground after this, which the kids scramble for. Like bills, not coins.)

Series Breakdown

You can read any of the books in any order, though many refer to previous books in the series. Starting with book 17, Junie moves from Kindergarten to First Grade. Her teacher and many of her classmates change, which can be a bit jarring if you’re jumping around. I’m not gonna list literally every book like last time, because there’s 28 books, and a lot of the summaries are too straightforward. I’ll mention a couple of ones of particular merit here:

(1) Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus : Junie doesn’t like riding the bus, so she doesn’t leave school once she gets there. She doesn’t leave so good the cops come.
(8) Junie B. Jones Has a Monster Under Her Bed : A classmate’s rumor scares Junie. A very good example of normal parents in a normal family. Junie’s parents get really sick of Junie being scared.
(11) Junie B. Jones Is a Beauty Shop Guy : The most page time Junie’s dad gets I think.
(14) Junie B. Jones and the Mushy Gushy Valentine : Big drama secrets revealed!
(17) Junie B. Jones Is a Graduation Girl : A very sweet end to the kindergarten arc. They actually play up she’s going to graduate for like two books before this too.
(18) Junie B. Jones: First Grader (at Last!) : It’s in the title. Also Junie gets glasses.
(25) Junie B. Jones: Jingle Bells, Batman Smells! (P.S. So Does May) : This is the Christmas one.
(24) Junie B. Jones: Aloha-ha-ha! : The only book where Junie leaves her city.

Cool Stuff

• The student images at the start of each book. Probably one of my favorite things in kidlit. There’s some crazy personality going on here. Keep a close eye on Junie, Lucille, and Roger between grades:

• Basically everything Junie says is hilarious. Just read any book.
• From book 16:
  “No, thank you,” I said. “I already did a cheer for the skipping team. And look where that got us.”
  Mrs. made squinty eyes at me.
  “Try,” she said.
  I stood up.
  “Rah,” I said.
  “Thank you,” said Mrs.
  I sat back down.
• From book 22:
  In my dream, I was the only person in Room One that could kick the ball. 
  That’s because all of the other children in Room One had broken legs. On account of accidents happen sometimes.
• From book 22:
  I am not going to school tomorrow.
  And I mean it.
  Friday
  Dear first-grade journal,
  I am at school.
  I do not know what went wrong.
• From book 25:
  “My father says that friends should never borrow money from each other.”
  I clapped my hands real thrilled. “Then it’s perfect!”‘” I said “Cause I you and I aren’t friends! I don’t even like you, May! Plus listen to this! I’m not even borrowing the money! You’re just giving it to me! And I’m not paying you back!”’
  May made a mad face at me. Then she quick put her wallet away again.
  I slumped way down in my seat. And I tapped my fingers on my desk. ”’I don’t get it,”‘” I said. That was the best arguing I ever thought of. What went wrong there?'”
• From book 26:
  “That’s exactly what I said…official.”
  I stood up a little bit straighter.
  Official makes you automatically taller, I think.

Conclusion

A lot of parents don’t speak kindly of Junie, due to her “not being a very good role model” for kids. I don’t really wanna get into that discussion too much here, but here’s a very informative linguistic article from the official website that covers her speech at least.

Junie B Jones has stuck around since 1992 for a reason. The characters are all very realistic and the humor is still there after all this time. I laughed out loud at least once every book, usually multiple times. If you’re into any kind of kidlit, especially chapter books, I’d recommend you check it out. You probably don’t need to read all of them, but they’re all worth it.