Collecting All the Junie B Jones Books
The series runs 28 main books plus a handful of specials and companion titles. When people say "complete set" they usually mean the numbered books plus the Holiday books, but publishers have been weird about re-releases, so what you end up with depends heavily on how strict you're being about it. I spent about six months tracking down every edition after my kid wanted to read them in order. The first thing you need to know is that the original Scholastic editions and the later "Classic" reprint editions are not identical. The covers were redone around 2010-2011, the fonts changed slightly, and a few interior illustrations were touched up. If you're collecting for a shelf display this matters less. If you're building a set where every book should look consistent, mix carefully or pick one print run and stick with it. The numbered books came out between 1992 and 2005. That means the earliest printings are over three decades old now, and they show it. The glue in the spines of first and second printings tends to dry out, and I found this on book #3 and book #7 when I was assembling mine. The pages literally fall out if you open them flat and leave them there. I solved it by getting archival book hinges and re-sticking the spine joints on the three worst offenders. Takes about twenty minutes per book if you're careful. Don't use superglue. It yellows and cracks within a year.
Here's the part most people miss: there are two different editions of Book 6, "Junie B. Jones and That Monster Teacher." The original 1994 Scholastic printing has a different illustration on the title page than the 2004 reprint. If you're trying to be complete in a bibliographic sense, you need both. I didn't know this until I listed one on eBay and a buyer flagged it. That cost me about forty dollars to track down the earlier printing on AbeBooks. If you're buying a complete lot online, ask specifically which editions are included before you bid. Lots sellers almost never disclose reprint vs original mixing. For actual acquisition, here's what I'd do in order. Check your local library's surplus sales first. I picked up seven books for twelve dollars at one of those. Then check Barnes & Noble's used section, Amazon third-party sellers, and eBay. The older books sell in bundles pretty frequently, and single copies of #12 through #20 tend to be the ones that disappear fast because parents buy them for kids starting in second grade and hoard the early numbers. Expect to pay between $1 and $4 per book on the secondary market unless you catch a bundle deal. The specials include the Holiday books (there are four of those), the reader companion books, and the "Junie B. Jones's First Boxed Set" which was a retail product that collected books 1 through 4. The boxed set itself is a bit of a pain because it's a mass-market retail item with flimsy binding. Mine came apart within a month of my kid reading out of it. I transferred those four books to loose copies and kept the box for storage only.
One more practical note about ISBNs. Scholastic reprinted many of these with different ISBNs over the years. A single title can have three or four valid ISBNs depending on whether it's hardcover, paperback, library binding, or a later reprint. If you're searching by ISBN to verify you have the right edition, expect confusion. It's easier to just search by title and then check the copyright page against a bibliography if you need to confirm. The series isn't going to appreciate in value the way some children's book collections do. These were mass-produced at enormous quantities. The rarest book in the set is probably #1, and even first edition copies in good condition sell for maybe fifteen to twenty-five dollars used. It's worth collecting for the sake of having them, not as an investment. If your goal is to build a readable, complete collection for a child or classroom, budget roughly $60 to $120 total depending on whether you find bundle deals. Budget extra time for the spine repair work on the oldest printings.
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