Junie B. Jones 26 – Aloha-Ha-Ha!

Barbara Park's Junie B. Jones - Aloha-Ha-Ha is a very loud funny story for 8 year olds who cannot keep exciting news to themselves.

What happens

Junie B. is going to Hawaii. Her dad has a job interview there and he came home with two spare tickets. Best of all, the trip is for big people only, so her baby brother Ollie is being left at their grandparents' house.

She only found out the night before. So she spends journal time standing on her chair, hollering at her teacher to hurry up and start show-and-tell.

Mr Scary does a deal with her. Stay calm and quiet and she can go first. She agrees. Then she twirls herself into the floor and knocks over the bin and the sink stool.

He also hands her a camera and a photo journal. One picture a day with a caption, to tell the class the story of her trip when she gets back. Junie B. loves this right up until he calls it an assignment. Schoolwork and holidays are two things children do not like mixed together.

You get the whole thing in her own words and she is very sure about all of it. Grown-ups are baffling. Teachers spend a lot of time adjusting people. The airport, she decides, has no sense of humour whatsoever.

Then there is Philip Johnny Bob, her stuffed elephant, who answers back. He is not at all pleased about the new Hula Girl Barbie and the two of them have a scrap inside her backpack before the plane has even left.

The airport chapter is lovely if your reader has ever queued for anything. Junie B. counts her way through five separate lines and works out that the security queue is exactly like Disneyland, except longer and with no ride at the end.

A word about the writing before you hand it over. Junie B. tells the story in her own wobbly grammar and it stays wobbly all the way through. Bestest. Flinged. I quick wiped my cheek. Some parents love this and some really don't. A child who collects new words will spot every mistake and enjoy it. A child who is still shaky on their own writing might be better reading a bit of it with you.

Worth a mention that this is the American text too. Junie B. goes on vacation rather than holiday, and she is in first grade.

What to read next

For another child who says every single thing out loud, Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus is in the library as well. That one starts on her very first day of school, when she is so frightened of the bus that she decides not to get on it to come home.