Okay, so Justin Fletcher as we know, rules tv, in particular Cbeebies where it is impossible to avoid him (and why would you anyway?).
Having said that, he’s also holding strong in the album chart with his ‘Hands Up’ album, which went Top 20 on release (and still gets regular plays on the stereo here at home).
There’s the ‘Something Special’ magazine which is still going strong, plus plenty of books for older kids…
What could Justin possibly do next? Oh, just an utterly excellent joke book, that’s what!
It arrived in the post today, and was eagerly ripped open by.. me. I am a woman of few jokes, but my jokes I’ve carried with me through the years are ones that I’ll continue to take with me – and they’re BOTH IN THE BOOK. My sense of humour is obviously not as advanced as I thought.
Now, H is two and a half (going on twenty-two and a half), so we had our next hurdle to conquer – explaining jokes. I wasn’t sure how she’d react, as Christmas Cracker jokes were just a bit too advanced last year but actually, this book is just right. There’s a few jokes that she’ll get as her vocabulary improves, but on summing up the book, she got ‘Knock Knock’ quite quickly (and even started inventing ones of her own), her own personal favourite (we repeated it 15 times) is ‘Why does a giraffe have a long neck? Because his feet smell!’ – so nothing too taxing, but enough she understands why it’s funny.
Every page has Justin in a different costume (mostly in cartoon form with a photo of his face), and she did spend a bit of time saying “ooh, silly Justin, what’s he doing now?” and having a good giggle about it.
My First Justin’s Jokes is available to preorder now at Amazon, and will be released on the 3rd May 2012. ISBN 978-0-571-28823-6, published by Faber and Faber.
I was sent a copy to review, and all opinions are my own (and H’s!).
EDIT – We have a copy to give away in a competition – stay tuned…. we’ll get it up as soon as we can!
