Mess Up! JoJo and the Big Mess by Jane O.Connor

Hi! I am JoJo. I make messes. I can't help it.

Nancy Clancy's little sister is a mess--a walking, talking mess, who leaves a trail of disorder behind her.

Nancy tries to teach JoJo how to make things. Making pasta sounds like fun, but JoJo seems to have a talent for sloshing the sauce and spilling the spaghetti. JoJo becomes er, SAUCY! OOPS!

Dad is mad.

Time to hit the tub! Heavy on the shampoo!

Okay, maybe if JoJo does something outside, it won't be such a fiasco! She puts on her fireman's hat and offers to wield the hose to water the flowers. Oops! Water and dirt = MUD!

Dad is mad.

He plops JoJo and Frenchie the dog into the plastic pool to get the worst of it off, and then it's inside for a proper bath for JoJo.

Can't this kid do something that doesn't require a trip to the tub?

Bree's little brother Freddy comes over to play, and Dad tells them to play someplace where it's dry. and please, no more messes! They head inside to JoJo's room, where a nice, dry pillow fight follows.

"Look!! Feathers are flying!"

Guess what? Dad is..., well, you know!

"CLEAN THIS MESS UP!"

It's back outdoors, where JoJo and Freddy decide on some finger painting on the picnic table. It's guaranteed to be messy, but at least it's easy to clean up, and when JoJo hands Dad her painting of a great big red heart, he's .... NOT MAD a bit, in Jane O'Connor's first I-Can-Read book about Fancy Nancy's younger sister, Fancy Nancy: JoJo and the Big Mess (My First I Can Read) (Harper, 2017). In this My-First-Reading book starring JoJo, the typeface is large and the words are few, and with Rick Whipple's comic illustrations filled with reading cues, the text is easy to sound out for emergent readers. For the youngest Fancy Nancy fans, this one is just what the reading specialist ordered, with most of the usual characters getting in on the action. Share this one with Fancy Nancy: JoJo and the Magic Trick (My First I Can Read) and to be fair to younger sisters, perhaps return to that first book about Nancy herself, Fancy Nancy, in which a trip to the ice cream shoppe turns into fancy fiasco for a fun look back at Clancy family history.