“Kids of all stripes will identify with EllRay and his unwittingly hilarious antics.”— Booklist Eight-year-old EllRay is down to one-and-a-half best friends, and his little sister points out the obvious: he needs more! So EllRay decides to audition other boys for the part, the way his sister is auditioning for the lead role in her day care’s spring play. Now, EllRay has to come up with fun things to do at recess, because when he’s the Recess King, everyone will want to be his friend! ACCOLADES AND PRAISE FOR THE ELLRAY JAKES SERIES: “Warner is a dead-on observer of playground politics, and has a great ear for dialogue.” — School Library Journal “Ideal for reluctant readers.” — Booklist “Young readers can identify with EllRay, who is neither a bad seed nor a goody-two-shoes; he and his sense of humor are just right.” — Kirkus Reviews A Junior Library Guild selection A Scholastic Book Club selection A Texas Bluebonnet Award Winner 2012-13 Sally Warner (www.sallywarner.com) has published more than twenty novels for young readers, including the Emma and EllRay Jakes series. She lives in Altadena, California with her husband and their not-so-miniature dachshund, Rocky.  1 “What’s so great about going to the grand opening of the park tomorrow?” I ask my sister Alfie, as I make a snow angel on her fluffy bedroom rug. “So they fixed it up a little. It will still be the same old boring place.” My name is EllRay Jakes, and I am eight years old. I know this kind of stuff. “Nuh-uh,” four-year-old Alfie argues, scowling. “It said ‘new’ on the sign in the post office, didn’t it? And signs don’t lie. It’s against the law. There’s gonna be fwee hot dogs, Mom said, so we each get to ask a fwend.” “ Fwee ” means “free” in Alfie-speak. And “ fwend ” means “friend.” Alfie’s r ’s sort of come and go. I sigh. “A park’s not new just because they plant better grass, and change the benches so people can’t sleep on them, and paint over the graffiti. Dad said that’s all they were going to do. And it’s January, Alfie. It might be raining.” “But there’s probably a better play area now,” Alfie says, ignoring my weather forecast. The old play area at Eustace B. Pennypacker Memorial Park only had one swing set, and one tetherball pole that has been missing its actual ball for almost a year, I remind myself. So it would be hard to make the play area any worse . “Listen, Alfie,” I say. “We already saw the so-called new park the other day, didn’t we? When Mom got lost on the way to Trader Joe’s? We drove right by it.” Our mom sometimes goes a different way to the store when traffic gets too crowded. She also likes to park our Toyota with plenty of space on each side, even though the car is older than I am. Mom is a very careful driver. I am going to have the coolest car ever, when I grow up! It will always be new, and it will have flames painted on the sides. Or at least skinny stripes. “But when we saw the park, it didn’t have a wibbon in fwont of it for our queen to cut with giant scissors, EllWay, ” Alfie says, as if I have just missed the most obvious point about Oak Glen’s newest old park, which is opening tomorrow morning, like I said. Saturday. “EllWay” is Alfie’s version of “EllRay,” which is a shorter—and less awful—version of “Lancelot Raymond,” my full, official name. My mom writes love stories for ladies, see, about dead or imaginary kings and queens. I guess she got a little carried away naming me when I was born. Moms sometimes do that, in my opinion. And my college professor dad was probably too busy studying weird rocks to put up an argument. Later, as time went by, my too-fancy name was shortened first to L. Raymond, and then to L. Ray. But now, everyone just calls me EllRay. And I won’t do much more translating for Alfie, I promise. “This is California, Alfie,” I remind her. “Oak Glen doesn’t have a queen. That lady you’re talking about is our new mayor. She just acts like a queen.” The new mayor shows up everywhere, wearing a fancy hat. It is the only ladies’ hat in Oak Glen, I think. She also waves a lot. I try not to sigh again as I click my robotic insect action figure—already cool enough!—into a deadly-looking tank. I start rolling it toward the lavender pony whose long blond tail Alfie is combing. I imagine destroying its golden corral. C-r-r-r-u-n-c-h! Nothing personal, lavender pony. “That lady is too the queen,” Alfie informs me. “Just because she doesn’t wear her queen-hat all the time,” she adds, shaking her own head so hard that her three soft, puffy braids swing back and forth. “You probably think she should wear it to bed, don’t you?” she continues. “Or when she goes swimming? But real queens don’t do that. I asked Mom once, and she said no. So, hah .” Alfie has recently discovered sarcasm, I am sorry to say. “You’re mixing stuff up,” I tell her. “First, it’s called a crown, not a ‘queen-hat,’” I begin. “And second—” But Alfie has moved on. “You don’t have anyone to invite to the park,”