Module 13 - Junie B. Jones Has a Monster Under Her Bed

Bibliographic Information

            Park, B. (1997). Junie B. Jones has a monster under her bed. New York: Random House, Inc.

Summary

Junie B. Jones is a kindergarten student that is frightened of monsters.  She tries to get her classmates to agree with her that there are no such things as monsters, but they just feed right into her fear by telling her that they do believe in monsters and that they probably live under her bed.  They also have her convinced that you can tell the monsters have been in your room at night because the monsters leave slobber on your pillow when they have been trying to fit your head into their mouths. 

     Junie comes up with some clever ideas to get rid of the monster including having mother bash it in the head with the broom just like she does to other bugs, and having grandmother vacuum it up and smash the vacuum cleaner bag with the car.  Junie refuses to go to bed and then crawls into her baby brother’s crib (and puts him down on the floor) thinking she could escape the monster that way.  She sneaks into her parents’ room, and gets caught repeatedly and returned to her own bed each time.

     On Junie’s worst night of all, she wakes up with drool on her pillow and decides that the monster has been practicing on her.  The next day the class school photos come back from the photographer.  Junie had not been prepared for the pictures and finds that she has her face in horrible poses for each of her pictures.  In exasperation, when sitting on the side of her bed with her horrible pictures she gets the idea to throw the pictures under the bed and scare the monster away with the theory that her face in the picture is just as scary as any monster. 

Impressions

This story is very humorous.  It takes normal childhood fears and twists them around in a way that should make children laugh.  I enjoyed the story when she tries to explain that her daddy told her there was no such things as monsters and one of the other children explains to her that parents have to say that and that is why moms and dads sleep together so that they can protect each other.  I also got a good chuckle when Junie explains that her mother was talking to her very scary with her teeth gritted together.  A parent reading this story aloud to a child would have to be careful that the story didn’t reopen the whole “fear of monster” thing, but overall most children will and parents will have a good laugh at Junie and all of her ideas to get rid of the monsters.

Reviews

Gr 2-3--Junie's kindergarten classmates convince her that an invisible monster lives under her bed. Her parents and grandmother are unable to convince her otherwise until Junie hits upon the idea of putting her unflattering school picture under the bed to frighten the monster. In Junie B. Jones Is Not a Crook, the little girl discovers that "finders keepers losers weepers" is not an appealing philosophy when she loses the special gloves her grandfather gave her and the child who finds them doesn't take them to the lost and found. Junie's first-person narration is sprinkled with deliberate grammatical errors and misunderstood word usage in an attempt to show a five-year-old's viewpoint ("I runned home," "They got stoled on purpose."). Precocious use of sophisticated language is also used to achieve an intended humorous effect. The black-and-white, full- and half-page illustrations reflect Junie's cockeyed view of the world and will help attract beginning chapter-book readers. The issues the child is dealing with are right on target for the intended age group, but Junie's personality is more annoying than endearing and the humor lacks freshness and spontaneity.

(1997, November). [Review of Junie B. Jones Has a Monster Under Her Bed]. School Library Journal.

Library Use

This would be a great introduction to chapter books for young readers.  The librarian could use any Junie B. Jones book for a read-a-loud to be continued during library time until the book is finished.