Junie B. Jones Tour Bus Promotes Latest Book

By Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 10/14/2009

Junie B. Jones, star of Barbara Park’s popular series about a precocious six-year-old, has hit the road again with a 16-city bus tour to celebrate the release of Junie B’s Essential Survival Guide to School (Random House 2009).

The interactive spiral journal in which Junie gives some helpful tips about the ins and outs of school is the first new title in two years.

For the past six years, Random House has sent two-actors—recent drama school grads Sarah Grover playing Junie B. Jones and Ron Waidlich playing school bus driver Mr. Woo—on a national tour to perform a 30-minute production, written by Park, of various scenes taken from the 27-book series.

The actors travel in a bright pink “stupid smelly” school bus adorned with colorful graphics, including the series’ signature checkerboard and the faces of Junie B’s friends in the windows.

School Library Journal caught up with the tour in the Hudson Valley village of Rhinebeck, NY, the eleventh stop on the tour that included Augusta, ME, and Newark, DE, and which ends in Toronto, Canada, on October 27th.

More than 100 6- to 8-year-olds and their parents filled the Rhinebeck High School auditorium to watch Junie B. open her “Big Pink Trunk of Junk” and performs a “Show and Tell” sharing instantly recognizable items from the series such as her stuffed elephant “Philip Johnny Bob” and the floaty ball from a toilet tank, Junie B’s favorite “plumbing supply.”

The five foot one, 100 pound Grover says she’s thrilled to portray the character of a book series that she read as a child. “The audience is just as crazy about Junie as I was,” she told SLJ . “And I get to express myself in a wild way.”

Suzanna Hermans, manager of the local bookstore, Oblong Books, worked closely with Random House, the local library, and the school district to bring the Junie B. bus tour to her town. All partners collaborated on promoting the event, supplying space, and taking care of the logistics. “I am thrilled to partner with our independent books store,” says Steve Cook, director of the Starr Library.

The Junie B. Jones series has sold 50 million books since its release in 1992.