Read Jo Jo Makoons: The Used-to-Be Best Friend free in the Little Reads app.
Dawn Quigley's Jo Jo Makoons: The Used-to-Be Best Friend is a funny school story for 8 year olds about a girl who's pretty sure her best friend has gone off her.
Jo Jo is seven, in first grade, and she lives on the Pembina Ojibwe reservation. She has two best friends. Mimi is her home best friend. Mimi is a cat, so she never says goodbye back in the mornings (very rude).
Fern is her school best friend. Only lately Fern hasn't been saving her a seat at lunch. So Jo Jo decides she'd better get some more friends. Just in case.
Her kokum has some advice. You don't have to be friends with everyone, but you should try to be friendly. Jo Jo takes this VERY seriously. Touching her tongue to her lip instead of sticking it out at Brie counts as friendly, apparently.
The joy of this one is how Jo Jo's mind works. She's completely sure of her own logic, and her logic is wonderful. She mops up spilled grape juice with the beadwork Mama is making for the powwow, to save the carpet, and can't understand why nobody thanks her. Five people and four bananas? Easy. "Everyone gets some banana," because that's what sharing means.
Then she overhears Mama and Kokum whispering about taking someone for shots. She decides it must be Mimi. So Mimi comes to school in Jo Jo's backpack. Can you guess how well that goes? There's a very precious model tipi in the classroom, and Mimi finds it...
It's told straight to the reader, so Jo Jo asks you questions and shares her Ojibwe and Michif words as she goes. By the end your reader will probably be saying "boozhoo" for hello. Her kokum, her mama and her poor teacher (with a vein that pops out on his forehead) all feel like real people.
It's worth knowing that Jo Jo's grandpa died the year before the story starts. It's mentioned gently, as the reason Kokum lives with them now, and it isn't dwelt on.
If you've got a child who's ever come home worried that a friend doesn't like them anymore, Jo Jo's big feelings about lunch tables will feel very familiar.
If this one goes down well, Junie B. Jones, First Grader has another girl with loads to say. Junie B. arrives at school to find her kindergarten best friend has swapped her for a pair of twins, and she is NOT happy about it.
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