Review by Booklist Review
K-Gr. 3. In this companion to Punctuation Takes a Vacation0 (2003), the nouns and verbs decide to have some fun of their own while the kids in Mr. Wright's class are away participating in a field day. The nouns pair up with other nouns and the verbs with other verbs, until they realize they must cooperate to accomplish anything. When the kids return to class at the end of the day, they find that the words in some classroom signs have been rearranged and that the nouns and verbs have left them a Mad Libs-style letter just for fun. Reed's vividly colored cartoons capture the high-energy activity, showing triangular-shaped verbs smiling, hopping, and whining their way through the story, accompanied by a variety of animated classroom objects. Although the emphasis is on silliness, Pulver makes her point about the parts of speech; even the youngest listeners will realize that sentences need both nouns and verbs in order to make sense. --Kay Weisman Copyright 2006 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In a follow-up to Punctuation Takes a Vacation (which PW called an "entertaining tale-cum-grammar lesson"), Nouns and Verbs Have a Field Day by Robin Pulver, illus. by Lynn Rowe Reed, Mr. Wright's class similarly lets nouns and verbs wreak havoc (e.g., " `Listen!' said a verb"; " `Window!' said a noun"). Thick, rainbow-bright brushstrokes bring the students, nouns and verbs to life. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-3-Mr. Wright's students like to play a game with nouns and verbs, so their classroom walls are filled with them. On Field Day, when they are out of the room, the nouns and verbs decide to have a field day of their own and form teams. Unfortunately, like seeks like and they soon discover that nobody can win if your team consists of just nouns or verbs. Working together, however, offers the possibility of success. John Beach reads Pulver's rollicking story (Holiday House, 2006) with gusto, turning the nouns and verbs into individuals. Readers can enjoy his verbal high jinks while flipping the pages and diving into Lynn Rowe Reed's bold, kid-friendly illustrations. While it is occasionally a bit annoying that every word and letter in the jam-packed illustrations is read aloud, often resulting in duplication, this is a minor quibble. Those following along will doubtless enjoy searching for the words being read. Teachers will appreciate this joyous celebration of parts of speech and will find this a fun set for classroom use.-Teresa Bateman, Brigadoon Elementary, Federal Way, WA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Primary) Punctuation having returned from vacation (see Horn Book 5/03), attention in Mr. Wright's classroom turns to nouns and verbs -- until Field Day, when the kids all desert the parts of speech, leaving them alone inside. A sharp-eyed verb spots the activity out the window, and pretty soon the nouns and verbs are having their own field day, with unsatisfactory results, as all the nouns are on one team and the verbs on another. A quick switcheroo brings them into more felicitous alignment when they realize that ""things happen when we work TOGETHER!"" While the concept lacks the natural ease of its predecessor, Reed's bright, energetic acrylics extend it tremendously. Nouns appear as the objects they represent; the verbs are represented with torsos of thick black Vs, their corresponding words written up one side. Once readers sort out what's what, they will delight in the hide-and-seek game that finds ice-cream cone hiding from eat, and chew zeroing in on pencil. Book and worm team up to become bookworm for the three-legged race, relying on wiggle to get them across the finish line. Pulver's humorous offering presents an appropriately athletic point of access to an often too-dry subject. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The creators of Punctuation Takes a Vacation (2003) sentence readers to a good time with this follow-up. Feeling left out after the children in Mr. Wright's class thunder outside for a Field Day, the nouns and verbs left in the classroom decide to organize events of their own. But having chosen like parts of speech for partners--"Glue, Markers and Tape stuck together. Shout wanted to be with Cheer. So did Chew and Eat."--it quickly becomes apparent that as opposing teams they can't actually do anything. Depicting the Nouns as objects and the Verbs as hyperactive v-shaped figures, Rowe creates a set of high-energy scenes, climaxing in a Tug of Words and other contests once the participants figure out that they'll work better mixed rather than matched. This playful introduction to words recalls Ruth Heller's Kites Sail High (1998) and Merry-Go-Round (1990) for liveliness, and closes with several simple exercises and games to get children into the act. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
