Junie B. Jones (the book series and the character) is so great, you guys. SO GREAT. I wasn’t sure how she would fare on audiobook, but she is great there, too. Mostly because she acts as an excellent pick-me-up if I’m feeling a little bummy AND she helps brings families together (i.e., me and my daughter whose moods improved in the car because Junie B. was on.)

Here are just a few of the reasons Junie B. Jones is so great:

• She and her best friend Grace take turns sitting by the window on the bus, unless they can’t remember whose turn it is. Then, they settle it with their fists.
• She loves her baby brother but just wishes he could live somewhere else.
• She loves her grandparents.
• She has a best friend Lucille who is a pretty, pretty princess and whose grandmother must be loaded.
• She used to be scared of going to the principal’s office, but she’s spent so much time there that it’s no longer scary and he’s sort of a friend now.
• She wants to grow up to be a janitor because janitors are superheroes who save teeth, paint things, and have great big flashlights.
• She’d rather hide in a classroom than ride the school bus.
• She wants a tool belt like her grandpa Frank Miller.
• She calls her grandmother by her first name when she feels like her grandmother is ignoring her.
• She has contempt for the crybaby kid and is pretty sure she can beat him up.
• She’s a nutball.
• When she realizes that her diet may be causing her nutball tendencies, she skips the sugary cereal that day, but realizes that was stupid because sugary cereal is delicious.
• She thinks too much.
• She talks too much.
• She observes the world even if she doesn’t always understand it–especially those wacky grown-ups.
• When a boy is nice to her, she realizes that he is secretly in love with her so she calls him her boyfriend. The boy will have no idea she considers him her boyfriend.
• When a new, cuter boy moves to town, she will dump the other boy who was only her boyfriend in her mind.
• She’d rather stay home and fix the toilet than go to a stupid, meanie boy’s birthday party, even if she does want to be invited.
• She will jump out of a hamper when she’s spying on you.
• If she says something first, tough for you because you cannot think, like, or do that thing. Because she said it first, see?
• She exasperates her parents.

Basically, she is one of us.

This collection has the first eight books of the series on it. Narrator Lana Quintal sounds convincingly like a five-year-old girl and does the voices of grown-ups the way a five-year-old would hear them.

Listening to these books are SO FUN. I’m going on a road trip this summer, and I’m going to get the second collection to keep me company when it’s my turn to drive. I love this kid, and I love that my 14-year-old daughter who read most of them when she was younger can listen to them now and enjoy them.

If you have kids, these books are super for the car, especially because they’re short and silly. Ahhh, Junie B. Jones, you are the best. THE BEST.