Barbara Park is the wildly popular author of the Junie B. Jones series for young readers. While she has written other books, Junie B. will always be her claim to fame, with a whopping total of 26 Junie titles. She lives in Arizona with her husband, and they are the parents of two grown sons. She has received over 40 awards for her books, including 25 Children’s Choice Awards.
The idea for Junie B. came from a character Barbara had created earlier named Molly Vera Thompson, who appears in the book “The Kid in the Red Jacket.” Barbara had so much fun writing Molly, she decided to create a similar character for her new series. Junie B. is purely fictional, although Barbara admits that she herself did have some behavior problems at school and spent her own fair share of time at the principal’s office.
Barbara says that she didn’t always want to be an author. Her original plans were to teach high school history and political science. It was her love of reading that eventually led her into writing. Her first novel, “Operation: Dump the Chump” was accepted after only three rejections, a record in the publishing world.
Her luck seems to have held throughout her career: it only takes her a couple of months to write a complete Junie B. book. However, she has tackled some stories that are more weighty, and those took longer to write. “Mick Harte” was one such book. The story of a young boy’s death as seen through his sister’s eyes, it took nearly two years to write. Another challenge was “The Graduation of Jake Moon,” the story of a boy and his grandfather, who suffers from Alzheimer’s. She took these two books slowly, wanting to give them the time they needed.
Right now, she is focusing on expanding the Junie B. series, writing two books a year. She doesn’t have an end in mind to the series, but plans take it as it comes and see where it goes. That sounds like a good plan to me.
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