Content report card
The Planet of Junior Brown parent’s guide: what’s inside
Language
Sexual content
LGBTQ+ themes
Substance use
What it offers
A note for parents
This Newbery Honor book explores friendship, loyalty, and resilience through two boys navigating poverty, neglect, and institutional pressures. While the emotional stakes are real—homelessness, abandonment, and systemic indifference—the tone remains grounded and ultimately hopeful. The narrative rewards empathy, courage, and mutual care, making it valuable for older middle-grade readers ready for more mature themes.
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From the publisher
Junior Brown, an overprotected three-hundred pound musical prodigy who's prone to having fantasies, and Buddy Clark, a loner who lives by his wits because he has no family whatsoever, have been on the hook from their eighth-grade classroom all semester. Most of the time they have been in the school building -- in a... Junior Brown, an overprotected three-hundred pound musical prodigy who's prone to having fantasies, and Buddy Clark, a loner who lives by his wits because he has no family whatsoever, have been on the hook from their eighth-grade classroom all semester. Most of the time they have been in the school building -- in a secret cellar room behind a false wall, where Mr. Pool, the janitor, has made a model of the solar system. They have been pressing their luck for months...and then they are caught. As society -- in the form of a zealous assistant principal -- closes in on them, Junior's fantasies become more desperate, and Buddy draws on all his resources to ensure his friend's well-being.
Shelved under
- Fiction
- African Americans
- Friendship
- Juvenile fiction
- Homeless persons
- History
- Newbery Honor
- Large type books
- Friendship, fiction
- African americans, fiction
- Children's fiction
- Adolescence, fiction
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ISBN 9781416914105 · Aladdin