Ron Roy’s June Jam is a gentle garden mystery for 5 year olds about a Father’s Day surprise and a strawberry thief nobody can catch.<\/p>\n
This is the sixth of the Calendar Mysteries. Bradley Pinto has a present in mind for his dad. Dad still misses the strawberry jam his own mum used to make, so Bradley wants to make some from Grandma Pinto’s recipe, using berries from the family’s garden.<\/p>\n
There’s just one problem. Something is biting the strawberries in half. One big round chomp, no nibbling, then on to the next one. The courgettes have been bitten too.<\/p>\n
So Bradley, his twin Brian and their best friends Nate and Lucy set out to catch it. But how do you catch something you never see? The fence is too high to climb and nothing has dug underneath. Nate is sure it has long shiny fangs (and he’d quite like to keep all ten toes).<\/p>\n
They try everything. A scarecrow stuffed with straw and wearing a gruesome Halloween mask. A hole covered in sticks, copied from a jungle picture in Bradley’s encyclopedia. A huge fishing net held down with bricks. Every time they turn their backs, another berry gets bitten!<\/p>\n
It’s a lovely warm read. There’s no baddie at all, just four friends getting hot and muddy in the sun and having a lot of fun doing it. Nate hits his thumb with the hammer straight after promising he won’t. Lucy knows loads about animals from home in California, and she gets to be the clever one more than once.<\/p>\n
It’s also very easy to follow for a newish reader. Each idea gets tried, each one fails, and you can’t wait to see what they’ll try next. Your reader might enjoy guessing what the creature is before the kids do.<\/p>\n
It’s worth knowing that Grandma Pinto has died before the story begins. It’s mentioned only briefly, as the reason Dad misses her jam so much, and the book is gentle about it. If your family has lost a grandparent recently it might start a conversation, though there’s nothing sad on the page beyond that.<\/p>\n
If they’re after more of the twins, Lucy and Nate, January Joker has the same four friends on a snowy night, with strange yellow lights out by the barn and two odd little creatures hopping about in the snow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ron Roy’s June Jam is a gentle garden mystery for 5 year olds about a Father’s Day surprise and a strawberry thief nobody can catch. This is the sixth of the Calendar Mysteries. Bradley Pinto has a present in mind for his dad. Dad still misses the strawberry jam his own mum used to make, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14787,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":7024,"lr_next_read_anchor":"January Joker","lr_seo_hook":"Scarecrows, traps and a net can't stop the berry biter in Dad's garden.","lr_series_id":343,"lr_series_name":"Calendar Mysteries","lr_series_position":6,"lr_series_label":"","lr_author_order":"1070"},"book_tag":[22],"age_group":[21],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[1070],"class_list":["post-14788","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-mystery-books","age_group-books-for-5-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-ron-roy"],"yoast_title":"Calendar Mysteries – June Jam by Ron Roy | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Scarecrows, traps and a net can't stop the berry biter in Dad's garden. For ages 5+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n