THE JOY BOYS

This First Choice Chapter Book features four episodes about the brothers Joy, Harry and J.J., with amiable full-color illustrations on every page. In the first chapter, the boys pretend to be cowboys and get chased by a bull. In the second and third chapters, they are grounded after a playful mud fight because their mother believes they were quarreling; sent to their room, they get into a real fight. The "wild animal" of the camping trip in their fourth adventure turns out to be their faithful collie, Bono. Byars (My Brother, Ant, 1996, etc.) imbues the stories with good spirits; the mud fight installments are amusing. The plots will be somewhat obvious, however, even to very new readers; obvious, that is, except in the few instances when only a careful look at the illustrations makes events comprehendible. (Fiction. 5-8)