Junie B. Jones Is a Beauty Shop Guy

Junie B. Jones Is a Beauty Shop Guy by Barbara Park is a very funny story for 8 year olds about a small girl with enormous plans and no volume control at all.

What happens

Junie B. wakes up one morning having decided to change her name. The new one is Pinkie Gladys Gutzman.

Pinkie because it's the loveliest colour there is. Gladys Gutzman because that's the snack lady at school, and honestly, who wouldn't want to be named after that woman?

Her daddy points out that nobody will ever remember a name that long. Junie B. thinks for about four seconds and comes back with a name tag. Sorted.

Then he has to take her along to his haircut, and it isn't his usual barber. It's a beauty shop. Junie B. is delighted and announces this to everybody within range.

The hairdresser is called Maxine and she's wearing a name tag as well. So obviously they're colleagues now. Junie B. is handed a broom and a fluffy towel and given a job.

She tells the whole thing herself, in her own words, and that's where the fun lives. She waked up. She runned. She is "excellent at this appliance, I believe." If your reader has reached the stage of correcting everyone else's grammar, being a mile ahead of her is very satisfying indeed.

She's also gloriously over-confident. "I never acted crazy in my whole entire career," she says, moments after twirling into the fridge, the cooker and the dishwasher and landing flat on the floor. No damage, she reports.

Best of all, her parents are visibly at the end of their tether and she hasn't the faintest idea. Her mum mutters "Way to go, Ace" at her dad. Her dad does a big sigh and runs his hands through his hair. Junie B. carries on dancing round the kitchen.

One thing worth knowing before you hand it over. The wrong grammar is deliberate and it is everywhere. Waked, runned, holded, springed. If you've got a child who has only just got the hang of past tense and you'd rather not unpick it, that might grate.

For most readers it IS the joke, and hearing that it's wrong is half of why it's funny. It's American as well, so expect a beauty shop rather than a hairdresser's.

If you've got a child who announces things to whole rooms and is never once embarrassed, they've met their match here.

What to read next

There's more of her in the library. Junie B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth is Job Day at school, where she has already told the whole class she's got the best job of anyone and has absolutely no idea what it is.