Hilarous! The Best read aloud for Halloween. ( )

Junie B. Jones hears secrets about Halloween from one of her classmates and she is too scared to go trick or treating later that night. Written in the perspective of a first grade girl with a huge personality. ( )

In this book, a boy in Junie B.'s first grade class, Paulie Allen Puffer, tells her five scary secrets about Halloween. These secrets make her want to stay at home on Halloween instead of go trick or treating because she is so scared. The secrets are that real monsters and witches go out on Halloween but they don't wear costumes so you can't tell who is real and who isn't, if you carve pointy teeth on your pumpkin then it will roll into your room at night and bite your feet off, bats will land and live in your hair, and that candy corn is not really corn. Junie B.'s mom tells her that she has to buy a Halloween costume and go trick or treating. Junie B. remembers how scared she gets around clowns and decides to be Squirty the Clown for Halloween. She decides on Squirty because she can squirt people with her spray bottle if they scare her. She is very upset when she finds out that her mom won't let her carry around a squirt bottle with her, but is still hopeful that she will scare people, especially monsters and witches away. Unfortunately for Junie B., she doesn't scare anyone away and she gets very upset. After trick or treating, Junie B. doesn't wash her clown make up off before bed like her mom tells her to. When her dad returns home from his business trip and goes into Junie B.'s room to say goodnight to her, the unexpected sight of her smudged clown make up scares him and she is very pleased that she finally scared someone. I'm actually not positive what the main idea of this story was. At first I thought it was going to be to not believe everything that people tell you, but towards the end of the book the five Halloween secrets Junie B. was told are kind of dropped and not really mentioned. The rest of the story is Junie B. searching for someone to scare and I don't think that's a great message to send out to children. However, I did really like the language in the book. The author writes words how an actual first grader would say them which I think helps readers get a sense of how Junie B. really is. For example, she says "s'penders" instead of suspenders. There is about one illustration per chapter in the book, but I think those illustrations really help the readers picture Junie B. For instance, in the part of the book where a boy drops his apple down Junie B.'s pants, you can clearly see the pure shock and disgust on Junie B.'s face. She does not look pleased at all. ( )

I enjoyed reading this book because of the humor within. Junie b. Jones books are always my favorite. It is pure fiction but can sometimes be relatable to a child's life. This is a great book to read during Halloween as a class each day or something along those lines. ( )

not a fan ( )