Junie B., First Grader (at Last!) by Barbara Park

ends up getting glasses, and is nervous that everyone in class will make fun of her. cannot see the board in class and brings her to the nurse. Scary, her first grade teacher, notices one day that Junie B. in class and always tells her that she is better than her, which makes Junie B.

Her fellow classmate, May, always makes fun of Junie B. struggles with having no friends, until she meets a boy named Herb on the school bus who talks with her and becomes her friend. Unfortunately, all the students have made other friends and want nothing to do with June B. As she is shy at first, she enters her class and sees fellow students she had in her kindergarten class. Jones is finally a first grader, she has been waiting for this day for a very long time.

On Sunday, Blume praised Park for getting kids to read and recalled that some would confuse her with the title character of Park’s books.Theme: Fitting In, Elementary School Friends Park would cite “The Catcher in the Rye” as an early literary influence and also credited the books of Judy Blume with inspiring her to write for children, and to make the stories funny. She had actually planned to become a teacher, majoring in education at the University of Alabama, but a year of being a student teacher for 7th graders convinced her that any further classroom experiences should be confined to paper. The series has appeared on the American Library Association’s list of “challenged” books.īorn Barbara Tidswell in Mount Holly, N.J., Park remembered herself as a troublemaker who knew well the path to the principal’s office. Parents and educators occasionally objected to Jones’ personalized language and cheeky ways, worrying that she was a bad influence on her fans. inspired much laughter among families, and a few frowns. Park’s books sold more than 55 million copies just in North America, according to Random House, and the series was adapted into a popular musical theater production. “I find that when I’m struggling to think of how a 6-year-old would feel about something, I just have to go right down to the common denominator, find the simplest way that you can look at an object or a problem, and not muck it up with all of the stuff that adults do and over-analyze,” she said.

Junie B., First Grader (at Last!) by Barbara Park