|
 Park died Friday after a long battle with ovarian cancer,
according to a statement released Sunday by Random House Books for
Young Readers. She was a longtime resident of Scottsdale, Ariz.,
where she lived with her husband, Richard, and raised two sons.
Starting in 1992, Park wrote more than 30 illustrated chapter books
about the smart-mouthed girl with an ungrammatical opinion of
everybody — her parents, her teachers, her friends and her classmate
and enemy for life, May, who is so mean she won't even acknowledge
Junie's middle initial (which stands for Beatrice: "Only I don't
like Beatrice. I just like B and that's all," Junie warned).
The books' titles alone were windows into Junie's slangy mind: "Junie
B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth," ''Junie B. Jones and the Stupid
Smelly Bus," ''Junie B. Jones and That Meanie Jim's Birthday." Junie
was stuck in kindergarten for years before Park advanced her to the
next class, starting with Book 18 and "Junie B., First Grader (at
last!)."
"I don't have a problem being 6 years old in my head," Park once
explained during an interview with barnesandnoble.com. "It's almost
embarrassing; if I'm talking to librarians or teachers who know my
books and they say, 'How do you do this?' It's not a stretch.
"I find that when I'm struggling to think of how a 6-year-old would
feel about something, I just have to go right down to the common
denominator, find the simplest way that you can look at an object or
a problem, and not muck it up with all of the stuff that adults do
and over-analyze," she said.
Park's books sold more than 55 million copies just in North America,
according to Random House, and the series was adapted into a popular
musical theater production. Junie B. inspired much laughter among
families, and a few frowns. Parents and educators occasionally
objected to Jones' personalized language and cheeky ways, worrying
that she was a bad influence on her fans. The series has appeared on
the American Library Association's list of "challenged" books.
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 Born Barbara Tidswell in Mount Holly, N.J., Park remembered
herself as a troublemaker who knew well the path to the principal's
office. She had actually planned to become a teacher, majoring in
education at the University of Alabama, but a year of being a
student teacher for 7th graders convinced her that any further
classroom experiences should be confined to paper.
Park would cite "The Catcher in the Rye" as an early literary
influence and also credited the books of Judy Blume with inspiring
her to write for children, and to make the stories funny. On Sunday,
Blume praised Park for getting kids to read and recalled that some
would confuse her with the title character of Park's books.
"I'm Judy B. and lot of kids just assumed I was Junie B. Jones
and had written the books," Blume told The Associated Press. "I'd
always say, 'I didn't write them, but I wish I had.'"
Besides the "Junie B. Jones" series, Park also wrote picture books,
novels for middle school students and even a Hallmark greeting card,
an "insulting" birthday message about getting old. She was a
frequent winner of the Children's Choice Award who never did bother
to write a novel for adults.
"I'm not actually sure I'm grown-up enough for grown-up books," she
once explained.
Park helped found a charitable organization, Sisters in Survival, to
raise money women with ovarian cancer. Random House said
contributions can be made to
www.sistersinsurvival.org.
[Associated
Press; HILLEL ITALIE]
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