Judy Moody, M.D.: The Doctor Is In!

Megan McDonald's Judy Moody, The Doctor Is In is a funny school story for 7 year olds about a girl who wants to be a doctor and will happily practise on anybody.

What happens

It has rained for seven days and Judy has had quite enough. She would far rather be ill than go to school. Being ill means fizzy pop for breakfast and toast cut into special strips.

So she has a go at mumps. She pushes a cherry cough drop into her cheek to make it stick out, Humpty Dumpty style. Her little brother Stink is not fooled for one second (faker, faker, faker).

Then she gets to school and finds bones. Bones everywhere!

Class 3T is starting a topic on the human body. A glow in the dark skeleton is sitting in Mr Todd's chair using Mr Todd's pencil. There are owl pellets to poke apart for tiny rodent bones. Best of all there is a trip to a real hospital emergency room, where a doctor explains that his job is a bit like being a detective.

Judy comes home with a plaster cast on an arm that is not broken in the slightest.

What makes this so enjoyable is that you get Judy's running commentary on everything. She renames people the moment she meets them. Dr Nosier becomes Dr Nosehair. Stink becomes Stink Rat-Fink Moody. A snapped pencil is a broken spinal cord and therefore a genuine emergency.

She is also quite hard to live with, which is half the fun. A classmate keeps calling out the answers Judy was about to give. Her brother has the one thing she wants for Sharing Day, sealed in a baby food jar at the back of his cupboard, and he will not hand it over for less than a million dollars.

There is one bit worth flagging. Judy tries to talk Stink into holding down his pet toad so she can make an incision. Stink refuses, waves an animal protection badge at her and gives her a small lecture about testing things on animals. Nothing happens to the toad. Still, if your reader is the sort who winces at any suggestion of harm to a pet, you might want to read that page alongside them.

It is American, so expect Mom, third grade and a call to 911 rather than 999. None of that gets in the way, and quite a lot of the medical words stick (your reader may start asking about their radius and their ulna).

What to read next

If it is Stink who gets the laughs in your house, try Stink and the Incredible Shrinking Kid. He measures himself against Judy every single morning and the number never, ever changes.