this really isn't related to the post much at all, but can y'all believe that next year will be the 100th Anniversary of L. M. Montgomery's authorship of Anne of Green Gables? Crazy. I may or may not love those books with all my might.

Junie B Jones is fine with me, too.

I loved Ramonda Quimby! I loved her all the way up until I replaced her with Are you there, God? It's Me, Margaret. Another favorite childhood female protagonist of mine was Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird. I was a big fan of Little Women as a child too and kind of wanted to be Jo when I grew up. Now, I really want to check out this little Junie B. Jones!

My opposition (and I believe the opposition of many of the complaining parents) is not to Junie's strong character and mischievous pranks, but instead to the constant use of blatantly improper English in these books.

I was raised by a wonderful single father who banned Barbies in the home and never bought cable TV. Instead, my sister and I were encouraged to read constantly and the literature we were given always used correct English. I was kindly corrected if I ever used words like "runned" or "funnest". Yes, children are always going to use these expressions as part of the language development process, but correct language should always be reinforced so that they can learn from their mistakes. As a result of my father’s encouragement I was always above average in terms of reading and writing in school and am beginning a career in grant writing.

I believe that all girls should be taught to question and challenge the rules, but I also think that all girls should be educated and composed when doing so. A strong woman is one who not only thinks for herself but one who is also able to convey those thoughts eloquently. Commenters on this site are always expressing their desire that television, film and music portray positive roll models for young women and I think we should ask no less of the literature that is directed towards these girls. I see no reason why Junie B. cannot empower and inspire young girls while educating them at the same time.

I wanted red hair sooooo bad as a kid. I wanted to be just like Anne-with-an-E and Caddie and Ramona. I have no idea why all these kick-ass girl protagonists had red hair, but to me it was a symbol of rebellion and creativity.
I finally dyed it in college and got the flaming red hair of my dreams.
I want to check out Junie B. Jones now, especially if she's got red hair, too.

The psycho editor in me says encouraging that kind of grammar is horrible. On the other hand, some of my favorite books are the kind written in the vernacular of their characters, like Clockwork Orange and Trainspotting. Tough call.

We probably shouldn't let anyone read anything with dialect. Or let our kids play with other kids who might not have perfect grammar. Or talk to their parents if their parents' grammar isn't up to snuff. I mean, beautifuller is just as improper as saying, "It's me."

Barring learning difficulties, kids will pick up on the correct grammar and adhere to it even if Junie doesn't.

My little sister has read Junie B. Jones and similar books. I've tried reading them and find them painful. It's not my anal grammar Nazi, who cringes when I see, "Ten Items or Less"; it is my brain that simply cannot process something that is as close to modern English as Chaucer.

The language is really horrible. Please read one before you criticise those who want to ban Junie B. as repressive antifeminists.

As for red hair: it's because people allow redheads to be spunky. Ever since I dyed my hair red about 13 months ago, I've gotten away with a lot more. People expect me to be opinionated and headstrong.

Is it just me or is "Huck Finn" considered one of the best peices of literature of all time for the dialect? Albeit, it's an older audience, but I fail to see the difference.

Didn't Nancy Drew have red hair, too? I suppose there's some stereotype there, about redheads being nonconformist or headstrong or something.

Also, grammar and language are absolutely important for all kinds of reasons, but one might hope that this isn't the only book a kid is reading. Not to mention that in my experience (having absolutely no education or qualifications in the area), kids learn a lot of their language habits from speech, not reading.

m_m_ides
I have to disagree with you. I don't think they will pick up proper grammar unless they're exposed to it. For some reason, I was born with an inner grammar teacher, and it drives me insane when I hear people say things like "I should have did it" or "I seen it", etc. When I was in college, I would see grammatically incorrect signs all over the place and wonder how even at the university level, people don't know the difference between "its" and "it's"...
I don't have kids, but if I did and they wanted to read Junie B. Jones, I would make them correct all her spelling and grammar mistakes.

Jessica, have you ever read a Junie B. Jones book? I have a 2 yo girl, and an older stepdaughter whose JBJ book I read one day awhile back. To use JBJ's own words, it was stupid. She doesnt come across as spunky, she comes across as the kind of obnoxious kid you wouldnt want to be friends with if you were a kid. Now, I realize one person's obnoxious is another person's iconoclast. But my feeling was what the fuck? She isnt imaginatively drawn, doing cool things. She's a pill. And many 6 y o girls talk far better than JBJ.

i read those books with my little sister when she was young, and she loved them. i thought they had great energy and a good sense of fun. maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but that doesn't mean it's 'stupid' or 'obnoxious.'

and fine, i get that some people have certain ideas about how kids learn language - which, fyi, is a lot more complicated than reading 'funnest' in a certain book - but banning these books? come on. thats go to be one of the most ridiculous things i've ever heard.

I don't know that I agree with banning any book ever.

HOWEVER, I do think it is important that kids get the chance to explore the grammar used in the books. It would be great if teachers would analyze the word choice and stuff with them, as much as you can with young kids. It could be an excellent "what NOT to do" teaching tool.

I think anything that will get kids to read is great. However part of what is great about reading fiction is that it helps you develop a better vocabulary, and if the words youa re being exposed to are wrong, well that isn't very helpful.

I really think dialect in books is great, but I think it is more appropriate in books for people who already know how to read and speak properly.

I think Rock Star has a great idea: If the girls want exposure to the books in a classroom setting, let them read the books and then ask them to correct the (intentional)spelling and grammar mistakes in the writing.

Language acquisition is strong at that age, so it's important to make sure children are taught good grammar in as many ways as possible, whether it's from listening to someone speaking, reading a book or from explicit study of their native language or a foreign language.

Parental concerns don't seem out of place at all. The phonics vs. "whole language" debate seems unnecessary, because the two don't have to be mutually exclusive.

There is a specific literary purpose to using dialect or slang or whatever, in the right context. What could the purpose possibly be here? Kids learn proper grammar... by being exposed to proper grammar. If the only limitation is 'learning difficulties', well I guess that covers the majority of people then.

This is not a disagreement over learning techniques. Who thinks encouraging incorrect grammar is a learning technique? The only justification for the poor grammar that I can think of is that kids will be more enthusiastic about reading if they identify more with the character. But I don't think this technique is obviously helpful in that regard. And if the parents of a local kindergarten class decide that's not a good enough justification, what is wrong with their asserting their authority on the matter?

I loved Ramona!!! ...even if reading the book involving someone cracking an egg on their head inspired children to try doing that....

I think there needs to be a balance between the fun reading and the educational reading. Either way it is so important for children to read. I'm more concerned about what will happen to children's language skills if they keep up with email acronyms.

Well, regarding redheads, it's because we're just awesome.
I loved Ramona when I was little. In junior year of college, my roommates used to insist that I was what happened to Ramona, mostly b/c I look like her all grown up. So I hung up a "Nosmo king" sign in celebration.
I also loved Caddie Woodlawn, Little House on the Prairie series, and the American Girls series.

My mom's an elementary school teacher and she LOVES Junie B. Jones books. She read one of the whole books aloud to me when I was visiting a couple of years ago :) She's really good with voices.

You know...this irks me. My girls LOVE Junie B. Jones. And quite frankly, if we all read books for their educational value ONLY...we'd be a bunch of tight asses. I think kids should be able to read books that have fun value to them. Just because they are written as Junie herself is talking, doesn't mean they are teaching our kids poor grammatical skills. If anything, it is teaching a love of reading.

GAWD..people take life so damn seriously.

I say this and realize that my comment has a grammatical error. Sheesh. I should hit preview more often.

by:e - "I believe that all girls should be taught to question and challenge the rules, but I also think that all girls should be educated and composed when doing so. A strong woman is one who not only thinks for herself but one who is also able to convey those thoughts eloquently. Commenters on this site are always expressing their desire that television, film and music portray positive roll models for young women and I think we should ask no less of the literature that is directed towards these girls. I see no reason why Junie B. cannot empower and inspire young girls while educating them at the same time."

But, but, but - she's a kindergartener!! Real life kindergarteners don't yet know "proper" English. And her words make the books so much more fun (funner!) to read.

Hm, my issue with the books is that I just don't think they're very good. And I'm sure that the grammar issues contribute to that opinion. I have tried repeatedly to enjoy them, as kids really do love them, but they just make me cringe. The issue of her being a spunky, strong-willed girl just doesn't play into it.

And for the record, as a Children's Librarian, I know for a fact that there are much better options for spunky girl characters out there. In addition to the classics already mentioned, I'd point readers to Clementine, Ruby Lu and Franny K. Stein off the top of my head.

I'm an English teacher, so I feel I have at least a little authority on this subject. I definitely don't think this book should be banned, that's silly. However, if the language is as bad as you say (I teach high school so we wouldn't be reading this book!) I don't think it needs to be in a curriculum. There is a huge difference between dialects and purposely using grammatically incorrect words. Often books written in dialect have some sort of cultural or historical reason for doing so; it adds to the book's plot or message. Reading this kind of book certainly won't do the kids any favors. Then again, if this book gets kids excited about reading and they're into it, fantastic. Anything to get a kid to read on their own is great. I just wouldn't advocate teaching this book in a classroom the way one might teach To Kill A Mockingbird, etc.

"I really think dialect in books is great, but I think it is more appropriate in books for people who already know how to read and speak properly."

This actually reminds me of college Spanish class. On the first day of the term the professor said we'd be covering Castillian, not any of the other dialects, in class.

Why not Mexican Spanish or Argentine Spanish? Was the department trying to belitte non-Spaniards? Actually, no. The idea was that "standard Spanish" is apparently more understood across the world than any more regional dialect is (more understood in Venezuela than Chilean Spanish is, more understood in Chile than Venezuelan Spanish is, etc.) and so teaching it would help future study abroad students more.

To agree with what others here have said or suggested, there's a difference between using poor grammar in a book written for children, and using poor grammar in a book written for adults. Adults, presumably (and, hell, even older teens), already have a sufficiently good grasp of English grammar that they will immediately recognize the grammar as improper, even if they can't immediately identify which rule has been broken, etc. A child, on the other hand, is still learning proper English and has no particular reason to think that what appears in a book is incorrect unless it is obviously made so by the context (e.g., if Junie B. says "that's the funnest thing ever!" and her grammar teacher gently corrects her: "you mean that's the most fun thing ever"). So in approaching this issue we can't compare children's literature to adult or young adult literature; it's apples and oranges.

As for the poor grammar problem itself, I have to admit, it bothers me a little. I know it's horrible, but I tend to think just a little tiny bit less of people if their grammar is particularly bad (things like "if someone wants X, they have to do Y" and "are you coming to the store with Stacy and I?" definitely get under my skin, but I understand that they're common mistakes that people who are plenty smart make all the time, so I try not to be a Nazi about it). In fact, a part of me can't help but wonder if it isn't a little bit ANTI-feminist to have a gutsy, outspoken heroine who can't speak proper English. If she doesn't speak well, then she won't be able to articulate as intelligently her reasons for talking back to her teachers -- it could simply be that she dislikes them because they give her bad grades for her poor grammer. It detracts from any message the heroine could be trying to send. It seems to me the whole thing could be an attempt to portray feminists as uneducated, unintelligent, and unthinkingly belligerent. I'm not attributing any motives to the author, as this is the first I've ever heard of the series. But, my initial reaction to hearing that the girl speaks poorly is that I don't think she's a great feminist role model. This doesn't mean I don't want spunky heroines, because I totally do. I just prefer them spunky, rebellious, and smart, a la Lisa Simpson.

The practical side of me says "well, I guess young children don't /need/ to be reading a book with incorrect English. On the other hand, if children are raised in a family where parents are constantly correcting their English, they are going to learn correct English. If children are raised in a family that mostly doesn't use standard English, my hunch is it's not going to matter too much what they read."

The idealist in me goes further: "The notion of 'proper English' as being important to being successful in the world is so the product of a certain culture and a certain time. Language changes constantly, and their are some cultures that don't associate intelligence or success with the size of one's vocabulary and adherence to traditional, unchanging language usages. And the idealist in me think the obsession with "proper English" and "proper French" (I believe those are among the two cultures most obsessed with the notion of 'proper form') is a bit silly.

But I guess young children don't need these books. It's more the overall attitude of the culture and many parents that seems odd to me.

ok, something people don't seem to realize about how very young kids learn language: they DO NOT learn from a parent who is constantly trying to correct them. they learn from listening to everyone around them, and figuring out what works.

in fact, as someone who has worked with young (preschool aged) children, i can tell you all that one of the things that this age group finds entertaining about this series of books IS THE FACT THAT SHE SAYS THINGS WRONG. read these stories out loud, and kids will laugh because they know it doesn't fit with how they usually hear adults talking. and this is what makes them fun to read.

it makes me sick that people are so upset about this. why do people get so angry about proper grammar? it's about communicating. if someone is communicating their thoughts, i think this is what matters. to imply (and this is beyond these books, but is speaking to something i see on this site sometimes) that people who don't speak 'proper' english have less worthwhile thoughts, or are less valuable in some ways - it makes me sick. and makes me realize how classist people are.

"to imply (and this is beyond these books, but is speaking to something i see on this site sometimes) that people who don't speak 'proper' english have less worthwhile thoughts, or are less valuable in some ways - it makes me sick. and makes me realize how classist people are."

OTOH, some of the people in favor of teaching the "standard" dialects feel that people who don't speak "proper" English/French/whatever *do* have worthwhile thoughts, and could get their worthwhile messages out to even more people if they also knew dialects understood by more people.

I don't know... Not to say that they should be banned, but I'm not a fan of those books. My sister is pretty sure that Junie B.'s frequent negative remarks are to blame for my niece telling her other aunt that she likes her but "doesn't like Eric" (her boyfriend). And from the sounds of it, I agree. Who needs that? That's just mean. Kids shouldn't be encouraged to say stuff like that.

There is a specific literary purpose to using dialect or slang or whatever, in the right context. What could the purpose possibly be here?

The same as it is in every other book where an author does it--to create a specific character's voice in a believable way.

Eh, I just don't see the big deal. Most people grow up being able to code-switch fairly accurately. I can use vernacular and I can use standard English. Kids are not going to have their language skills utterly corrupted by reading a series of books in which a character says that something is beautifuller.

What I really can't stand is this ongoing nonsense about how it's bad for kids to read books about children who act up. What joy would there be in reading if all characters toed the line all the time and never acted up and got away with it. Haven't these people ever heard of Eloise, Madeleine, Alice? Do they do nothing but watch movies about adults who never cross against the light?

Kids shouldn't be encouraged to say stuff like that.

What makes you blame the books for your niece's behavior? People dislike other people all the time and say so. Your niece, like all kids, needs lessons in manners so that she knows when it's OK to say such things and when it's not (i.e., telling your aunt that you don't much like her boyfriend, probably not very nice; telling your parents or your friends that you don't like Eric, why not?), but I don't see why it's such a bad thing to say, period.

You know, I'm in a major university now, with fairly difficult admissions requirements, and I still see confusion with "it's" vs. "its", "there", "their" and "they're", and a whole mess of errors related to apostrophes in general. A note I saw that was left by one RA read "X and Y were in a car accident and will not be continuing classes. There mom's will be coming in..." And that's without touching sentence structure errors. All things that Spell Check won't catch for you. I think that getting kids reading is great, even if it's comic books or grammatically incorrect, but it is important that children learn proper grammer despite what they might read. The idea of correcting Junie B. themselves seems good and could even be something fun parents and kids could do together. Still, I think I'd give my daughter "Little House in the Big Woods" or "Ramona" at that age instead.

I think dialect is an important tool, right now I'm reading "Their Eyes Were Watching God" and it's a crucial tool in the world that Hurston is trying to convey. The fact is though, that sticking to cultural dialects robs the speaker of that dialect of communicating more effectively with the world at large. Standardized language can be taught in schools even to children who speak cultural dialects (or other languages entirely) in the home because it makes their lives easier in the end. College applications, tax forms, and most "official" forms people need to be able to interpret are written in standard english so that's what people should learn.

I still see confusion with "it's" vs. "its", "there", "their" and "they're", and a whole mess of errors related to apostrophes in general.

I see that all the time and harangue my students about it, but it's got nothing to do with reading books in dialect--there is no dialect in which homonyms are interchangeable. That's just basic spelling and grammar incompetence. Nothing to do with Junie.

"The fact is though, that sticking to cultural dialects robs the speaker of that dialect of communicating more effectively with the world at large..."

...including communicating effectively with speakers of *other* cultural dialects!

Well EG, it's quite possible the books aren't entirely responsible for what my niece said. However, when you're trying to teach a young (3-year-old) kid how to behave, it's pretty confusing if you present him/her with an example that's the complete opposite of what you're trying to teach him/her. I don't believe that the books influence her in a good way. I'm not saying they shouldn't be written, and I'm definitely not saying that characters in books should "toe the line all the time." I'm saying for a 3-year-old it sends a really confusing message.

Besides, I don't really believe my niece doesn't like Eric, she barely knows him. Kids say stuff they don't mean all the time. Also, I don't see why you can't see why it's a bad thing to say. I should have been clearer before, she said she didn't like her aunt's boyfriend right in front of her aunt's boyfriend. That's mean and it's uncalled for, but how can her mother tell her that when she's reading her books that convey that that kind of behavior is okay?

The thing is, adults are constantly bemoaning the fact that kids don't read for fun, on their own time (we'll set aside the question of how many adults in this country read in their spare time). But the minute kids find something that's actually fun for them to read, a phalanx of adults rides in talking about how the fun books are bad--they depict children disobeying and talking back, or they use lousy grammar, or they're vulgar, or whatever. And then we get the proposed solution: parents should go through the books with their kids and have them correct the grammar mistakes.

Can you think of anything less fun when you're six or seven? Instead of just being able to lie on your bed reading your Junie B. Jones book and goofing off, giggling at the way she mouths off to grown-ups and says "runned," you actually have to sit next to your parents and do some tedious grammar exercise?

We can't complain that kids don't read for fun if we do all we can to suck the fun right out of their reading, and adults don't get to decide what's fun for kids. Kids decide what's fun for kids. Adults can decide if they're going to allow their kids to indulge in that fun (to a certain extent--at some point they'll just read their friends' Junie B. Jones books while you're not looking), but if they deem the fun books unworthy, they don't get to complain when kids decide that reading is not, in fact, fun.

Not every single thing children do has to be educational. Sometimes one reads for fun, not to learn moral lessons, or correct behavior, or perfect English. Kids need downtime just like everybody else.

"Not every single thing children do has to be educational. Sometimes one reads for fun, not to learn moral lessons, or correct behavior, or perfect English. Kids need downtime just like everybody else."

Right on. Not all good books are good for the same thing - some are good for leisure, some are good for this class, some are good for that class, etc. ;)

Besides, I don't really believe my niece doesn't like Eric, she barely knows him.

Or she might not like him. She might dislike him for a lousy reason, like she thinks his eyes are too close together or something, but she still gets to dislike him.

Also, I don't see why you can't see why it's a bad thing to say.

Well, I don't. People, even kids, have likes and dislikes. As I agreed, she should not say it to Eric or to her aunt unless sorely provoked, but I don't think it's a bad thing to say.

she said she didn't like her aunt's boyfriend right in front of her aunt's boyfriend. That's mean and it's uncalled for, but how can her mother tell her that when she's reading her books that convey that that kind of behavior is okay?

I don't see what's so hard about it. "Hey, kid. Let me talk to you for a minute. Did Eric do something mean to you?" [if the answer is "no"] "Well, when you say that you don't like someone right in front of them like that, it hurts their feelings. How would you feel if Eric said that about you? It is not OK to hurt somebody's feelings like that if they haven't hurt you. In this family, we do not say mean things to each other. Now go tell Eric that you're sorry for hurting his feelings."

Three-year-olds aren't stupid. Even at that age, they can grasp the difference between fantasy and reality. The fantasy is that you run around and mouth off. The reality is that doing so hurts people, which is why we fantasize about it instead. And they're perfectly capable of understanding basic explanations. At least, the three-year-olds I've cared for have been.

I loved the Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins novels as a kid... they were mainstays in first and second grade.

But they were simple and relatable for any first grader, without butchering the language.

I think it's fine for books to have characters that don't have perfect grammar- that's simply part of some people's reality- but I think that for the sake of learning, books taught in school should probably feature better grammar.

I picked up the first Junie B. book at the library today, after reading the Times article. This evening I read it to my four-year-old.

The grammar stuff didn't bother me --- it was pretty understated actually. But I was troubled by how obnoxious a kid Junie is.

She refers to one kid throughout the book as "Jim that I hate," and another as "the boy I can beat up." She decides she hides in a closet at the end of the school day, leaving her teacher and parents to worry about where she is for hours. She dials 9-1-1 when she needs to pee and can't find an unlocked bathroom. And she never comes to understand that any of this is inappropriate.

I'm not a stick-in-the-mud. I like transgressive kids' books. But Junie B is --- in the first installment at least --- pretty much just an asshole.

I'm going to write up a full review for my own blog later. I'll link back when I do.

I dunno, Angus. Except for the 911 incident, all of that sounds pretty much like my daily life in kindergarten. I hated kids (I still recall whom I hated: Jeffrey Goldstein, that ass--I carried on hating him for years, what a jerk), there was a boy I "beat up" (when he found out I was taking karate classes, he informed me that girls couldn't do karate; I felt that there was only one proper answer to that, and I still don't regret it), and once I stayed in the bathroom for hours leaving my mom and teacher to worry about me (that wasn't entirely intentional--I'd had an accident and didn't know what to do). 911 seems a bit over the top, but sometimes kids do just hate each other. Same as adults, really.

First of all, Jessica, thank you for posting this! I was so angry when I read about all of the "crazy" (as you so gently put it :) ) parents and censors (!?) who are up in arms about this.

I agree with dorothy and BethM, that, HELLO! It's a story written from the perspective of a KINDERGARTENER. The books are supposed to be funny and entertaining, and they're meant to encourage kids to read. I think it's pretty safe to say that their communication skills are not going to develop into some incomprehensible mess after reading these books. And they obviously love Junie B. or there would be no controversy.

In my opinion, her popularity should be seen as something to celebrate, considering the fact that female heroines are few and far between in children's literature. Maybe she's not the perfect role model for young girls, but at least she's A role model. I agree that the standard should probably be raised for today's children's lit Heroine (can someone please revive our beloved Pippi, Ramona, and Eloise?), but the fact is that Junie B. is one of the only ones they got ;)

So, out of curiosity, does anyone know of any better options for children's literature heroines out there nowadays?

It depends on the age group you're looking at. My main area of expertise is actually books aimed at kids a bit older than Pippi, Ramona, and Junie are. Are you wondering specifically about that age group, or older as well?

Obviously, the answer is to start teaching latin and greek in first grade...

/gotta love my feminist classicist wife...

EG, it's hard to convey the sense of the book in just a couple of sentences. For instance, she decides she hates Jim within minutes of meeting him --- she sits down next to him on the bus, and starts fiddling with his backpack. When she unzips one of the pockets on it, he tells her not to, and she decides she hates him. For the rest of the book she refers to him as the kid she hates.

I don't know. In other hands, similar material could be okay. But there's a weird cruelty to the writing here.

Another example: in an early scene, Junie is hurt because a girl is saving a seat on the schoolbus with her bag, and tells Junie she can't sit there. In a late scene, Junie does the same thing to another kid, with no awareness that she's doing exactly the same thing that upset her a day earlier. (And no, I didn't get the impression that the author intended the reader to be critical of Junie, either.)

Specifically that age group, but only out of curiosity, as I am neither a parent nor a teacher (nor a Nanny anymore, thank the tiny baby Jesus). Mainly, I was just wondering if there are many, or if Junie B. is one of the few.

Maybe it's all in the writing, Angus. The Jim incident sounds like Ramona and Susan--Ramona is always pulling Susan's curls to see them spring back, and is always outraged and hurt when the teacher takes Susan's side and won't let her, and the narrative voice is sympathetic to Ramona as well--sympathetic enough that it wasn't until recently, when I re-read the books as an adult that I realized that Ramona was being hateful, and that as a curly-haired woman who hated the kid who sat behind me and boinged my hair, my sympathies were with Susan. But Ramona and Susan remain at daggers drawn throughout the series, as I recall, stemming from this incident, and one never sympathizes with Susan.

The seat-saving stuff sounds terribly true-to-life. Kids have been being awful little snots to each other for years and years.

People who are obcessed with grammar and so called "proper English" mystify me.

First of all, "proper English" is a POLITICAL concept, that varies dramatically depending on what part of the world you're in (just go on line and read English language newspapers from around the world to see for yourself)

Second, "proper English" is often defined as THE MANNER OF SPEECH COMMONLY USED BY RICH PEOPLE.

For instance, why isn't "ain't" concidered a proper word?

Could it possibly be because that is a contraction commonly used by poor and working class people?

Or, look at the pronunciation of the word "ask" - 500 years ago "axe" was the proper way to pronounce "ask".

In modern times, it's "wrong" - mainly because that's how many poor Blacks and Whites from the South pronounce that word.

Or, for instance, many speakers of African American dialect do not use the apostrophe s.

They'll refer to "Greg house" instead of "Greg's house"

Considering that anybody who speaks African American dialect knows exactly what the speaker means, why is that "incorrect".

All grammar tyranny does is make people who's speech is "incorrect" feel stupid - basically, it's a way of silencing them.

And that ain't right.

Yup, EG. Kids can be horrible. But they're not all horrible, and I'm not interested in reading my own kid a book in which the hero is an asshole.

as is quite obvious with my spelling, capitalization and punctuation, i really couldn't care less about "proper english" as language is always evolving and we no longer speak shakespeare's english either. i think the content of ideas is far more important than the way they are conveyed, but then, i always thought coloring inside the lines was a stupid concept too. id much rather someday raise creative smart passionate children than ones who can diagram a sentence.

but i think gregory has summed up what im trying to say better than i can, so ill let it be.

my main reason for commenting is, am i seriously the only one who was obsessed with harriet the spy, madeline from the madeline books and mary from the secret garden? i see mention of so many other heroines of children's literature, but not those 3. where's the love?

Fair enough. Did your kid like the book? I'm just curious.

My own younger cousin loved them, if I recall correctly. She went through a period of jjust loving books which had the heroine's full name in them: Junie B. Jones, Judy Moody, etc. They struck me as boring, to be honest. I always preferred fantasy books.

Casey really didn't like the abusive language --- she made me skip over those parts. And the hiding in the closet and the calling 911 frivolously both contradicted stuff she learned when her nursery school visited the local firehouse this spring, so those plot elements bothered her, too.

She's still up in the air on whether she wants me to read her the other book from the series I took out today, or just return it unread. She's leaning toward not reading it, I think.

"Eh, I just don't see the big deal. Most people grow up being able to code-switch fairly accurately. I can use vernacular and I can use standard English. Kids are not going to have their language skills utterly corrupted by reading a series of books in which a character says that something is beautifuller."

...and I bet they're not going to have their identities utterly crushed by reading a series of books in which a character says that something is beautiful.

"Or, for instance, many speakers of African American dialect do not use the apostrophe s.

"They'll refer to 'Greg house' instead of 'Greg's house'

"Considering that anybody who speaks African American dialect knows exactly what the speaker means, why is that 'incorrect'."

Doesn't whether or not it's "incorrect" depends on the audience with whom she or he is trying to communicate? Not every speaker of African American English has nothing to say to people who speak "Standard American," the Queen's English, Spanglish, etc. instead.

Meanwhile, an elementary school shouldn't need to suppress African American English to teach young speakers of it "Standard" English and a foreign language. If only my school district had offered any foreign languages before 7th grade...

An interesting thing about red hair: apparently the genes for red hair have effects on pain tolerance and reactions to pain medication.

http://www.eclectica.org/v10n2/kanumalla.html

On an unrelated note, my favorite "red haired spunky girl protagonist" is Pepper Ann, from the cartoon show.
::starts singing the theme song::
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcajSzQX4k8

Because redheads are fierce!!!

Oh, Mina, I completely agree! I haven't been engaging the grammar/spelling argument because I just feel like I've done it too many times. But suffice it to say that I'm an English teacher, and of course I'm in favor of teaching standard English, and of people using it. I actually don't/can't read things that don't use proper capitalization and punctuation. But I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.

This may have already been resolved in the thread (long day, my eyes aren't up to reading quite that much froma screen right now) but my first comment is on language/grammar acquisition. A great but very dense book I read (The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker) brings up some really interesting studies on how children can create language even when it's not there, the two most interesting examples being; the development of creole languages among enslaved communities at the beginning of the North American slave trade, highlighting that the children of different communities, whose parents all spoke in different languages and dialects, would in one generation create a complex language following it's own grammatical rules. The book also goes on to talk about how "Black English Vernancular" (BEV), isn't neccessarily "bad english", because it follows it's own grammatical rules and structure, and is an English dialect in it's own right.

Also, there are interesting cases of deaf children, whose parents often can never fully master sign language, being able to fill in the gaps and instinctively correct things that their parents sign incorrectly. Sorry for the spiel, but they're two really interesting cases that I thought would never actually be handy for anything but random trivia!

I'd want to read a Junie B. book before I stated any definitive opinion, but I'd also be curious to see whether any of these Junie B. specific dialect things are cropping up with the child readers of the books (e.g."beautifullest". To get up on my sassy horse, I also read well above my "standardized reading levels" when I was in school, and I think even as a very young person I would have felt condescended to with this Junie B. dialect.

Anyway, Long live Ramona Quimby!... age eight! ;)

On an unrelated note, my favorite "red haired spunky girl protagonist" is Pepper Ann, from the cartoon show.
OmG, Pepper Ann is so awesome! That's one of the few shows on cable that I really miss.
I can't believe that I forgot Harriet the Spy. She's one of my favorite literary heroines. She does morally questionable things but eventually learns her lesson. I heard there's a whole series of books that also focus on Janey & Sport.
I love the siblings from A Series of Unfortunate Events. I think it's awesome that Violet Baudelaire is an inventor and really excells at a traditionally masculine hobby.
I'm a huge Harry Potter fan & I love that a lot of the primary women are so strong--Hermione, Ginny, Luna, they all pretty much rock and contribute in really important ways. I think my fave adult woman in the series is Professor McGonagall, she is hardcore.
My favorite books when I was older (Teenage years+) included Jane Eyre, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Fahrenheit 451, A Tale fo Two Cities, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, & The Bell Jar.

Anyway, Long live Ramona Quimby!... age eight! ;)
Darn tootin'! What's everyone's favorite Ramona antic? I love when her & Beezus got rid of all of her dad's cigarettes, it especially cracks me up now when I think of the price of smokes. I also love when she made that crown of burrs that got caught in her hair, & when she got stuck in the mud in her new boots.

I like when Mrs. Quimby gets sick of hearing Ramona and Beezus complain about the dinner, so they have to cook dinner the next night.

What I find completely fascinating about the Ramona books is that they're about a working-class family. These days, it seems like the only time a kids' book will talk about what it means to not be rich is if it's an "issue" book with deep meaning. (I hate Because of Winn-Dixie, for instance.) But the Quimbys just lived daily life, and they didn't have much money, and it wasn't made a big deal of. The dad is a high-school graduate who gets laid off and goes back to school, working evenings stacking boxes in a frozen-food freezer, and the happy ending for the family in that book is when he gets promoted to manager of the store. Going out for a hamburger is a big deal for the family, and rare. Ramona is amazed when she gets sick at school and her mother shows up to get her in a taxi, because she's never ridden in a taxi before. Beezus and Ramona are complaining about always having to eat tongue, and their mother tells them that they'll just have to, because it's what's on sale. It's the kind of everyday money-watching that was part of my family's life that never seems to get acknowledged in everyday children's literature anymore.

I like when Mrs. Quimby gets sick of hearing Ramona and Beezus complain about the dinner, so they have to cook dinner the next night.
OmG, I'd totally forgotten about that.
I also liked that the Quimby family was working-class because I could relate to them. So many people in my town were upper class & their experiences, like nannies & horseback riding lessons were just totally foreign to me. I could relate to the tongue thing--while I never had to eat tongue, my stepdad was a hunter & every autumn our freezer was stocked full of venison, which I really did not like. That, and once my parents fed me rabbit & told me it was chicken.
I remember when Beezus wanted a Dorothy Hamill haircut & begged her mum to take her to an actual salon. I could really relate to that because the only place I had my hair cut at for most of my childhood was at the cosmetology school. Going to Supercuts was a huge deal.
What I see going on a lot in children, tween, & teen culture is the promotion of wealth as success, and I find that disturbing. My family's working-class but I think that they're successful.

Regarding grammar: I regard singular "they" as acceptable English grammar. If it's good enough for Shakespeare, it's good enough for a blog posting:

There's not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend

Eh, my feeling is that if you're writing or speaking in iambic pentameter, I'll let the singular "they" slide. Otherwise, not.

Junie B. Jones does not irk me half as much as Eloise. Actually, the Junie B Jones stories are kind of OK, and her parents and teachers seem sane, as opposed to Ramona's parents, whose comparative permissiveness is entirely outdated and unrealistic in modern society. I loved Ramona when I was little, and then I realized that her sister and parents were kind of jerks, and yet they were always more or less in the right.

Junie B. Jones is just one representation of dialect, and there is no child in history who takes ALL of their syntactical information from a couple of books. You model your language development on adults you have interpersonal conversations with, NOT media. Yay for Linguistics degree.

Jessica,

Have you read the Junie B books? With a child? I have and it really is bad. The grammar is horrible and the books are geared towards children who are learning grammar. It truly does interfere with their learning, particularly if they're exposed to these books without also being exposed to other books.

Moreover, they're not just feisty kid characters, they're bad. They do mean things to other kids. To me, this is the most disturbing part about the books.

Junie B books need to be tempered with other, better books. The trouble is, most of the books for that age are also mean-spirited and filled with poor grammar.

Why not Mexican Spanish or Argentine Spanish? Was the department trying to belitte non-Spaniards? Actually, no. The idea was that "standard Spanish" is apparently more understood across the world than any more regional dialect is (more understood in Venezuela than Chilean Spanish is, more understood in Chile than Venezuelan Spanish is, etc.) and so teaching it would help future study abroad students more.

...which, actually, isn't true, strictly speaking. Out of all dialects of Spanish, Castilian is pretty insignificant, except to a few Franco-era holdovers who also claim that Catalan and Basque are "dialects of Spanish". Castilian Spanish is worse than useless outside of Spain, where you will find that people think you're talking about "fucking a bus" (coger un autobus) amongst many other things. Even the Real Academia has begun to recognise that Spain has long since stopped being the standard for the language.

Oh, please. I'm a college professor and I love the Junie B. books. Kids know that different people speak differently, and that they shouldn't model everything they hear. Besides, if you read them as a series her grammar gets better as she ages (The Junie B. second grader books are much more correct than the kindergarten books.)

We were just on a long, long road trip and got Burger King - the kids' meals at the moment have audiobooks as the toy. What a pleasant surprise! We listened to an Arthur and Junie B. and the Monster Under the Bed. The kids loved it. Who could resist a book with this logic - "Of course your parents know about the monster under the bed, Junie B. - why else do you think moms and dads sleep in the same bed? It's to protect each other from the monster!"

Oh, and if you think that Junie B. books simply teach kids to be mean to each other, they impart important moral lessons as well. For example, when we read Junie B. Cheater Pants, my younger son will literally dive under the covers in sympathetic shame when she gets caught cheating and realizes how bad it is.

"...which, actually, isn't true, strictly speaking. Out of all dialects of Spanish, Castilian is pretty insignificant, except to a few Franco-era holdovers who also claim that Catalan and Basque are "dialects of Spanish". Castilian Spanish is worse than useless outside of Spain, where you will find that people think you're talking about "fucking a bus" (coger un autobus) amongst many other things. Even the Real Academia has begun to recognise that Spain has long since stopped being the standard for the language."

I stand corrected, thanks!

"...The book also goes on to talk about how 'Black English Vernancular' (BEV), isn't neccessarily 'bad english', because it follows it's own grammatical rules and structure, and is an English dialect in it's own right...

"...I'd want to read a Junie B. book before I stated any definitive opinion, but I'd also be curious to see whether any of these Junie B. specific dialect things are cropping up with the child readers of the books..."

That reminds me, is Junie B. speaking in an English dialect used IRL or just messing up English?

I mean, just as BEV is a dialect of English instead of a bunch of mistakes, all those incorrect test answers I wrote in Spanish classes were a bunch of mistakes instead of a dialect of Spanish.

"Besides, if you read them as a series her grammar gets better as she ages (The Junie B. second grader books are much more correct than the kindergarten books.)"

Sounds cool.

I too must agree with many of the parents and language teachers on here, these JBJ books are terrible with grammer.

Wendy's is currently giving out books on CD in their kids meals (which is much better than the stupid toys) but one of them is a JBJ book. It was featured alongside an Arthur book, so I thought it would be ok. We put it in, and I couldn't listen past track 1.

Listening to her talk was probably a lot worse than actually reading the book.

I have always talked to my daughter as adults talk to one another, and for a three year old she speaks more clearly than most teenagers I know.

"Why do so many spunky girl protagonists have red hair?"

Literary symbolism.

EG - Far beyond Shakespeare, there is a pretty solid literary history for consciously using singular they as a gender neutral pronoun. It's gained a surge of popularity in recent times, as people have objected to defaulting to the masculine pronoun of he as a sexist practice.

The use of grammatically correct language is frequently seen as a sign of a solid education. As strong argument can be made for that being a classist system, but functionally, that's still how it's viewed. Many HR people will immediately dismiss a resume with errors of spelling or grammar. If a person doesn't have the ability to use grammatically correct English, it just harms that individual's job prospects, it doesn't change the system. Many people find it difficult and unpleasant to read paragraphs that are a grammatical mess and lack punctuation. I'm not a fan of needless rules and restrictions, but when a person's use of grammar interferes with communication, their inability or refusal to adapt to a situation does not leave a good impression.

Granted, looking at the number of pure grammar advocates with ironic errors in their comments, I think you have to grant that "proper English" is not practiced, nor necessary, in all situations.

However, the argument that the Junie B. books, specifically, harm children's grammar doesn't really stand up. Huckleberry Finn has been part of school curriculums for a long ass time, and it hasn't caused the sky to fall.

Yes, Roni, I know. That was a flip comment. The larger point, though, is that, as the language-is-free-like-a-butterfly people love to point out, language changes. "You" used to be plural or formal. In standard English now, it's not. Similarly, in contemporary standard English, "they" is plural.

I've always found it humorous that English is still the national language of the United States. Even worse, our schools are still teaching children "proper" English. A very large group of our country has learned English as a second language and we have just as much trouble with English idiosyncracies as most do with conjugating verbs in Spanish. The rest of us get by just fine, despite our horrible English. The world is quickly flattening and the cop-out of "needing to teach our children proper English" shouldn't help the cause of defying young women the right to a spunky main character that happens to be female.

If anyone's interested, I just finished the detailed review of the first Junie B. book that I mentioned last night. It's up here.

I'm sure this has been said a number of times already, but conversations about grammar always make me really nervous. What, precisely, are people talking about when they say "proper grammar" or "standard" English?

Because, I think it's worth pointing out that what constitutes proper grammar in the United States isn't the same as what constitutes proper grammar in England, and isn't the same as what constitutes proper grammar in other parts of the world.

Hell, what counts as proper grammar in the United States has changed rather significantly over time and region, as well.

New words come into use, and the ways we use words change. I love language and words, but I think that it's important to remember that- while it's important to teach our children grammar- rigid enforcement of the Rules of Grammar are often a tool used by those in power to marginalize groups that they deem intellectually inferior.

I'm not suggesting that's what people are doing, but think about the prohibition of a word like "ain't." "Ain't" has been in popular use since at least the late 1700s, but it's constantly a source of criticism, with the most common criticism being that it's "ignorant."

When I see someone say something along the lines of "sticking to cultural dialects robs people of being able to effectively communicate" I can't help but cringe. The suggestion there seems to be that people should abandon their cultural dialects so that they can speak with other people, right?

People in the Deep South tend to speak their own regional dialect of English. When someone says "How ya'll doin'?" is that really harder to understand than "How are you people, as a group, doing?"

Regional dialects are often important markers of culture and heritage, and have their own sets of internal rules and structures- that they don't always conform to what the Rule of the Day is for "standard" English (is there really such a thing, anyway?) doesn't mean that they're bad. Yes, there's a certain perception that people who speak in certain ways are lacking in education or intelligence, but I'm not sure that the solution is to punish people who speak in dialect, but, rather, to work towards eliminating the prejudice that says "If you don't speak like a Mid-Westerner, you're not going to be taken seriously."

Ooor, I could say, largely, Gregory is right on.

EG: I have to say, the singular "they" is totally fine with me, and it's got a long history of use by authors like Shakespeare, Austen, Byron, Thackeray, and Pinker. Given that we lack any good set of genderless pronouns, and that "s/he" and "he/she" are clumsy and awkward looking, and given that people generally do not have trouble recognizing the function of "they" in place of "s/he", I don't see a problem with it.

It also goes back to an earlier point: In Australia, it's grammatically proper to use "they" as a gender-neutral pronoun, and the government of Australia encourages the use on official publications.

EG - I'm not sure I understand your point. You've made several comments of the "Why can't people use proper English?" variety particularly calling singular they as incorrect despite it's common use. Now, you seem to be dismissing the precedent for it being proper grammar by saying language changes.

Particularly baffling is your assertion that 'you' is no longer plural in contemporary English, despite directly addressing a group of people as 'you' is quite common.

Maybe that was a flip remark, but considering you used "...but it's got nothing to do with.." earlier while complaining about bad grammar, it's difficult to tell what you do and don't mean in all seriousness.

Let me rephrase. "You" used to exclusively be used to denote plural or informal address. Now we use it for singular and intimate address as well.

You've made several comments of the "Why can't people use proper English?"

I have? I don't think I have. First of all, I'm perfectly familiar with the reasons that many people do not use standard English (and it's not that they "can't"), so I wouldn't say that. What I have said is that I feel that proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling are important, and that when people don't use them, I find it hard to understand what they've written, or, to a lesser degree, said.

I stand by the assertion that singular "they" is currently incorrect, despite its common use. I would call the use of singular "they" slang, or vernacular, and I would not accept it in a formal paper from one of my students.

considering you used "...but it's got nothing to do with.." earlier while complaining about bad grammar

I have no idea what you mean here. "But it's got nothing to do with Junie B. Jones," which I believe is the sentence to which you're referring, is correct.

Oh, by the way, Roy--I know I'm fighting a rear-guard action on "they," and will doubtless lose within my lifetime and have to put up with degenerate grandchildren tossing "they" around when referring to an individual. That's OK with me, more or less. I plan to be one of those crotchety old spinsters who populate nineteenth-century novels bitching about how young people today have no manners or education. I like to think that sometime in the 17t