heartofdakota.com

Ladies,

My sister gave me a stack of books for my kids. In the stack was a bunch of the Junie B. Jones books. I haven't read these, but they "appear" to be geared toward the younger girls (K-1st grades). It also appears that they revolve around her "school" day, which isn't a big deal for me, because my dd wants and loves to be homeschooled. But the titles scare me.... It seems like these books might contain a little more "attitude" than I want to deal with. Have any of you read these? Are they that bad? I don't want to judge a book by it's cover...but I also don't want to open up the door for more back talk and bad attitudes than I currently deal with. My mom is telling me that I shouldn't "shelter" her forever...but I am the one who has to deal with the attitues!!!

Thanks for your help!

I would encourage you to read one of the books. It would probably only take 1/2 hour. Actually, I only got two chapters in before I decided that this was not a book my girls would be reading. Besides a horrible attitude, the books had words that we don't allow (stupid, etc) and contained what my girls call "poor talk." In other words, really bad grammar and sentence fragments galore!

And finally, does it pass the Phillipians 4:8 test? [b] Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.[/b]

I agree with Jenny, these books are not worthy to be read! We had a few, left over from my step-daughters' book collections, and I read one aloud to my dd, boy was I sorry I did that!! After only one chapter my dd made it clear that she did not like Junie and that she would rather not read anymore about her. The language and attitudes displayed in these books are just terrible and quite frankly I don't belive that I have ever run into a child like Junie in "real" life. If Junie is representative of what you find in ps, thank God for homeschooling!!

I'll be the lone voice of dissent. LOL. We think they are funny. We don't take them too seriously. My kids have never taken up bad behavior or coarse language after reading them. Part of what makes it funny is that Junie B is so over the top. The bad syntax is done on purpose and my mini grammar nazi children have never adopted Junie's childish grammar.
I would advise against them if you are already dealing with attitudes, negative behaviors, or poor grammar in your home but I think they can be read and no harm done. My husband and I work with elementary age children and we see this type of behavior all the time. Yes, it is magnified as a literary device for humor. Anyway, my kids KNOW Junie B needs a spanking which is why we just drop our jaw at her antics. They've given us plenty of opportunities to talk about character, behavior, in a light hearted way.

Guess my kids have read plenty of books with naughty children in them. We are selective in our book content but Junie B just doesn't hit my radar as being so horrible. We see it in the same vein as Dennis the Menace, Little Rascals, or even a bit of Laura Ingalls. Anyway, I usually don't say anything when Junie B. comes up because I know it can be a pretty passionate conversation. That's just our family's take on it.

My kids have read a lot of Junie B. Jones. I never thought about it being anything other than a child's book. I did decide to read through a few copies we have of it after reading this thread. I wouldn't say they are horrible, but the child's behavior is awful and almost all of the characters have flaws. I am going to talk with my girls about the books today and see what they think of Junie and her behavior. From now on out, if we read them, I will be reading aloud and we will be learning character from them (what not to do). We will probably do this with the books the girls have already read just to drive the point home that it isn't how we are supposed to act.
I do think they could be taken in the same vein as Dennis the menace and such, but if (like my girls did) they were reading them by themselves at 4 and 5 (I would say no). I had read the back covers and the inside bits but never read through one of them.
The Aloha First Grader one for example...on a trip to Hawaii, Junie B. harasses other patrons on the plane, gets to Hawaii begs for something too small and too young for her (Dad and Mom say no but give in after begging and whining ensue), finds it doesn't work for Junie (it is too small), Junie B. cries when Mom is going to remove it, a fellow patron (grandmother type) at the hotel pool sees this and roots for Junie B to keep it (totally against the parents)...I could keep going but you get the picture. There is a lot of sarcasm and words such as dumb, stupid, doofus, whatever...and she tells several harmless fibs as she calls them in the book.
Honestly, my children go to public school right now and the school library has the whole set and my girls have read them a lot for AR quizzes. I can see they are done in the vein that you are supposed to see Junie B.'s flaws and those around her, but a child of 5-7 may not pick up on that if reading it alone.
I never thought anything about them, but I would monitor their reading and talk about Junie B. and her flaws in the same way that we have talked about Reddy Fox and his flaws. The things that get them in trouble and why we shouldn't be like them.
HTH,
Val

Thanks for your comments ladies! I guess I am just going to have to break down and read them for myself first! I do use some of the books and things we do/read to teach correct behavior, so I guess I need to read each one and judge it on a case by case basis. We do skip over some of the "stupid" and mean comments in books, even some of the Burgess books. Even my 3 yo says, "We don't say stupid" when he hears someone say that.

It was not my intention to stir up any controversy in regard to these books. I value your thoughts since I don't have any other moms who think like I do to talk to about it in real life. Either they have boys, who wouldn't be interested in the books, or they let their girls read them because everyone else in their class reads them. I am not one to blindly follow the pack, but I am not a reinvent the wheel kind of person either.

I remember a few weeks back there was a thread that had some negative comments about some of the Judy Blume books, kind of along the same lines about what I was thinking of the Junie B books. Some of the comments were about re-reading them as an adult and seeing a lot more in the books that they didn't see when they read them as kids. I wonder if this would be along the same lines, we see it as bad, but the kids see it as funny. Just thinking out loud here....no comments necessary!

Thanks again ladies for your comments...I am off to pre-read....

I didn't think it would get controversial here.