“I remember when Denise sent in the art for the title page, picturing all of the characters together. Jones adventure will be illustrated in color. Goldsmith is also thrilled with the new art that Brunkus created for the commemorative edition of the inaugural novel, the first time that a Junie B. cock an eyebrow and change her attitude completely.” “The books are very character-driven, and Denise does a great job of rendering what Barbara has already seen in her head and created verbally. Twenty years later, Goldsmith knows she made the right decision, given the pivotal role that the art plays in the Junie B. I said to myself, ‘One day I’ll get to work with her.’ When I read Barbara’s manuscript for the first book, about this great kid with attitude, I thought, ‘Denise can definitely do attitude.’ ” “Denise had mailed me samples from her portfolio, and I’d tacked up her sketches of kids on my bulletin board. “Hers was, in fact, the only portfolio I showed to editorial and then to Barbara,” she says. It was she who lined up Denise Brunkus as the series’ illustrator. Goldsmith, v-p and associate publishing director of Random House/Golden Books for Young Readers, who heads up the art department, has also worked on the Junie B. First Grader: Turkeys We Have Loved and Eaten (and Other Thankful Stuff), due out in August. continues to inspire Park, whose latest novel starring this beloved heroine is the Thanksgiving-themed Junie B. I was a little low with my expectations, apparently.” And when I finally finished the book, I thought maybe I could write one or two more. By the second page, I knew she was a wild child, who – big surprise – had not yet mastered the Queen’s English. Within the first four sentences, I discovered I had a character who hated her middle name. “So I decided to write in the first-person as a five-year-old and see what happened. “I wasn’t sure that I could write for such a young audience,” she says. sort of hit the page running and – quite unexpectedly – kept on going.”Īt the start Park had reservations about writing for six- to nine-year-old readers. “The initial plan was to write four books for the new early chapter book series. “It was never my intention to write an ongoing book series,” Park says. To launch that line, whose name was changed to First Stepping Stones and later folded into the Stepping Stones line, Osborne created The Magic Tree House, Sachar penned the Marvin Redpost series, and Park gave life to Junie B.

Junie b jones sample page