"I LOVE burping! Burping is pure entertainment!" exults a first-grader during "Junie B in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells." This maxim gets proven by some house-rockin' belches that never wear out their welcome, especially as they come from a cuddly plush pig.

But in among the eructation and 80 more minutes of controlled, uproarious chaos comes a message that sneaks up on us and the title character at the same time. In an era when selfishness and disharmony run rampant in America, maybe we should use shows like this one to educate youngsters from the bottom up.

The best thing about Children's Theatre of Charlotte's production is that it has no heroes - possibly excepting the unflappable teacher, Mr. Scary (Josh Looney) - or any villains.

Yes, Junie B (Caroline Rigby) irritates classmates, especially a nemesis named May, with her snarky remarks. But she's smart, bursting with energy and frank about her shortcomings, at least in confessional moments to the audience.

Yes, May (Casi Harris) is a tattletale as hypercompetitive as Junie, but she's fundamentally a decent kid who's probably lonely in her corner of the classroom. (When best friends get mentioned, she clams up.)

Both of them want the lone Squeeze-a-Burp porker at the holiday gift fair. When Junie draws May's name on Secret Santa day, she has a dilemma: Does goodwill toward men extend to a girl who razzes her?

I have no idea how much of the craziness onstage comes from director Ron Chisholm and how much has been written into Allison Gregory's script, which adapts books by Barbara Park. But the play perfectly encapsulated the can't-wait-for-the-holiday energy of elementary school, from the boisterous kid who has panic attacks (Jeremy Shane) to the sharp youngster (Kendall Payne) who bounces from English to Spanish and back. (The other two kids are an amiable rich girl played by Mandy Moss and an anxious helpmate played by Daniel O'Sullivan).

I've never seen a cast that so quickly made me forget I was watching adults pretending to be little kids; Harris, Rigby and Shane do especially fine jobs of mixing exuberance, obstinacy and egoism. Gregory's also shrewd enough to show us that Junie's conversion, honest as it may be, isn't entirely altruistic: She hopes Santa will recall it while he's climbing chimneys.

The show's full of in-jokes: A Columbus Day pageant that goes hilariously wrong takes place to "Gloire immortelle," a chorus about a conquering army from Charles Gounod's "Faust." A hint of grand opera, a hefty dose of burping and an undercurrent of holiday spirit - could anyone ask for more?