Junie B. Jones, One Man Band

Junie B. Jones, One Man Band is Barbara Park's funniest sort of school story for 8 year olds, told by a narrator who is never, ever in the wrong.

What happens

There is a kickball tournament coming and Junie B. cannot play in it. Her piggy toe is smashed.

Here is how that happened, in her own words. She was practising her kicking in the garden. Her ball went over the fence. So obviously she had to find something else to kick, and there in the middle of the lawn stood Mother's brand-new watering can with the funny cow painted on it.

She backed all the way up to the fence for a proper run-up.

The can was full of water. Nobody had mentioned this problem to her.

What makes these books is that voice. You are inside her head the whole time and she tells the story exactly the way she needs it to be true. It wasn't her fault. What was she supposed to do, kick air? When her mother works out what happened, Junie B. is genuinely impressed with her. That woman is sharp as a tack.

So now she is out of the tournament and sitting at her desk poking her toe to see if it is better yet.

She will not be a cheerleader. Absolutely not. But Sheldon is doing a halftime show, and if she were in that, everybody would be looking at her instead.

You can probably see the disaster coming from here. She cannot.

One thing to know before you start. Junie B. tells the whole book in her own wonky grammar. "I did a gulp." "I fell down in the grass very painful." Some parents find that maddening and some children copy it for a week. It is deliberate and it is a lot of the joke, but if you are in the middle of teaching somebody how sentences work, maybe not this term.

She is also cheeky in a way that is not always punished. She sticks her tongue out at the girl next to her and calls things dumb and stupid.

If you've got a child who comes home convinced that a thing that was clearly their idea was somehow not their fault, they will recognise every page of this. It is American, so expect Mother, first grade and a kickball tournament.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, the Field Day one is worth a go, from back when she was still in kindergarten and got made team captain.