Where's Julius by John Burningham

Tuesday Treasure

Don't read this book if you are hungry oh and grab an atlas so you can follow Julius around the world.

Mr and Mrs Troutbeck sit down for breakfast, lunch and supper. Mrs Troutbeck prepares a terrific variety of meals but Julius is absent. He is off on wild adventures.

Here are some of the meals - I often think about them when I am cooking.

For supper lamb casserole with potatoes in their jackets and broccoli with butter on top and for "afterwards there is roly-poly pudding."

For breakfast there is "sausage, bacon and egg, toast and marmalade and also a glass of Three Flavour Fruit Juice."

For lunch there is "cheese salad with celery and tomato an an orange for pudding if you want it."

Other desserts are plum duff, apple crumble and steamed pudding.  DELICIOUS!

Roly Poly pudding https://cumbriaguide.co.uk/jam-roly-poly-pudding/

But where is Julius?

• He is riding a camel up a pyramid
• He is cooing the hippos in the Lombo Bombo River
• He is throwing snowballs at wolves in Novosti Krosky
• He is climbing the Changa Benang Mountains

Where's Julius follows the format from two earlier Burningham books - Come away from the water, Shirley and Time to get out of the bath, Shirley.  Real life is pale in comparison with the wonderful flights of imagination by our young protagonist.


In his storytelling, he liked to start off quietly, then draw his young readers into the realm of imagination. There was, for instance, “Where’s Julius?” in 1986, in which Mr. and Mrs. Troutbeck wonder why their son hasn’t come down to lunch. The reason is that he has, as most every child has done, made a little fort in his room out of a curtain strung across a couple of chairs. New York Times


Where's Julius was first published in 1986 and so sadly it is out of print but I am certain most Primary school libraries will have a copy of this treasure. If you want a laugh Amazon have a new copy for sale at $1,645!  If you can find a copy this is a book to really enjoy on so many levels and it works well as a Kindergarten read aloud too.  You could follow this with another John Burningham book with a similar structure - Harvey Slumfenburger's Christmas Present.