Review by New York Times Review
I GUESS people can make fun of bad punctuation when it shows up in respectable publications. And teachers can correct their students' bad grammar, as long as they also remind them that the English language is constantly evolving. What I don't like is the kind of person who goes on and on about "hopefully" or points at a "Strawberries 'On Sale' Today" sign and jeers: "What do they mean? Are they telling us the strawberries are on sale ironically? Our culture is in the toilet." Don't be tiresome. You know what the sign means. What you're really doing is bragging, "I'm better educated than the person who wrote that." Can't we all just get on with our lives? Unfortunately, no, because there are two books about grammar for children sitting in front of me now. Both are modeled on their authors' best-selling books for adults. The author of "The Girl's Like Spaghetti" is the British queen of punctuation glee, Lynne Truss. Truss's back-flap bio notes that "she is constantly tempted to correct punctuation on signs, advertisements, movie posters and more." (Remind me never to go out in public with her.) Alas, her own book is a mess. The main problem is that our language could probably manage without apostrophes, as the book's very first example shows. "The giant kids' playground" is illustrated with a huge, sprawling playground; "The giant kid's playground" depicts a giant boy swinging on a huge swing. Cute, but cheating. If either phrase were put into a sentence, even a young reader could guess the correct meaning from context, apostrophe or no. Other examples are problematic because Truss has to s-t-r-e-t-c-h for phrases that make her point. "Students' refuse to go in the garbage" versus "Students refuse to go in the garbage," for instance: Americans don't generally use the word "refuse" as a noun or the phrase "to go" as an imperative. "The shop sells boys' and girls' clothing" versus "The shop sells boys and girls' clothing" ignores the fact that without an apostrophe, the sentence means "The shop sells clothing to boys and girls." "We're here to help you" versus "Were here to help you" makes no sense; a subjectless, past-tense message - as in, "The doctors were here to help you, but now they're gone" - has scarcely appeared in the history of the universe. "Every time an apostrophe appears in the right place, the Good Punctuation Fairy is made very, very happy!" Truss writes. I suspect "The Girl's Like Spaghetti" has made the Good Punctuation Fairy a little bit sad. In "Woe is I Jr." Patricia T. O'Conner offers tips that are, for the most part, much more helpful. "Woe Is I Jr." is basically a lighthearted grammar textbook, and the points are sound. O'Conner covers a lot of tricky areas ("Hanged" or "hung"? "I," "me," or "myself"?), and she doesn't shrink from the fact that a lot of grammar rules must simply be memorized because they have no inherent logic. If there's a fault in "Woe Is I Jr.," it's that O'Conner tries a little too hard to ingratiate herself with young readers. Thus: "Plural means more than one. Without plural words, we'd have to talk about one thing at a time. You couldn't eat a bag of peanuts, you'd have to eat peanut after peanut after peanut. But language is very handy. A bagful here and a bagful there and - hey! - you've got bagfuls. See?" No, I don't. Even the most grammarphobic children don't question the need for plurals; they just object to learning the rules about them. And O'Conner's antic approach means that "Woe Is I Jr." can't always teach the rules clearly. The book's explanation of the difference between "will" and "would," involving Emeril and some Creole flapjacks, is probably not as handy as it might have been. Here's a problem neither Truss nor O'Conner addresses: People who care about punctuation and good grammar don't misuse them. People who don't care won't care. Children who like to read will pick up good grammar automatically. Children who don't like to read are not going to pick up books about grammar unless someone forces them. And if you want to force a child to read a grammar book ... well, I don't know what to tell you. Ann Hodgman's forthcoming book is a memoir, "The House of a Million Pets." #+ |9780061152559 |9780061152566 ~ IT wasn't until I was 29, and tried sandboarding for the first (and last) time, that I saw the beauty in being merely O.K. at something. Or, in my case, absolutely terrible, which was still O.K. What fabulous freedom there is in just giving something a try, with no expectations. Such is the gentle lesson behind "The OK Book," by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Rosenthal's previous books have a similar bent, validating children's concerns and providing quiet encouragement, all while using light, spare language. In "Little Pea," the book's namesake has to eat all of his candy for dinner ("Blech") in order to get his dessert: spinach ("Yum"). In "One of Those Days" we're reminded that even Can't Find Stuff Day and Itchy Sweater Day are followed by a brand-new day. In contrast, Tom Lichtenheld's earlier books brim over with Mad Magazine goofiness, like "Everything I Know About Monsters," with its colorful, fill-the-page illustrations in his textured matte style. The simple text in "The OK Book" is written from the perspective of a child who tries things and tells us: "I'm not great at all of them, but I enjoy them just the same. I'm an O.K. skipper. I'm an O.K. climber. I'm an O.K. marshmallow roaster." The amusing list continues, with a new activity on each page. Like the writing, Lichtenheld's illustrations are understated. The child, drawn as a stick figure using an O as the head and a sideways K for the arms and legs, is slightly fuzzy at the edges, as if drawn with an enormous Sharpie, and the text is written in a similar kindergarten-teacher print. The white background is sprinkled with occasional muted orange, blue or green to fill in a ball, field or marshmallow. The pictures often seem to contradict the words, yet at the same time perfectly elucidate the author's message. Above the text "I'm an O.K. pancake flipper" we see that the pancake has landed on the child's head. In another illustration we see our hero being whisked off the page, feet in the air, above the explanation "I'm an O.K. tug-of-war-er." The effect is endearing and funny, and young readers will certainly see themselves in the anonymous character. Part of the moral is that everyone will eventually find a way to shine. At the end of the book, the child lies in bed imagining success as a baker, painter or astronaut - "One day, I'll grow up to be really excellent at something." The lesson is a sweet reminder to engage in life just for the sake of it. And though, yes, the author hits us over the head, she does it with a silly foam mallet. Rebecca Zerkin is a literacy teacher at Public School 9 in Manhattan.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Just because the school year is coming to a close doesn't mean kids aren't still hungry for information. For budding writers comes Woe Is I Jr.: The Younger Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O'Connor, illus by Tom Stiglich. Adapted for a younger crowd from the original Woe Is I (called "witty, economical and fun to read" by PW), readers will find chapters dedicated to plurals, possessives, capitals, punctuation, cliches and more. (Putnam, $16.99 144p ages 9-up ISBN 978-0-399-24331-8; May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-8-Shrek fans won't shriek, since this fresh approach uses the favorite green ogre and other popular characters to demonstrate subject/verb agreement, verb tenses, and additional often-dreaded grammar rules in clever chapters such as "Plurals Before Swine" and "'I' Witness." Silly black-and-white cartoon drawings add to the fun in this kid-accessible title. (c) Copyright 2011. 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
O'Conner's grammar guide is adapted for kids. Her colloquial tone, plentiful pop culture references (some of which sound dated, like an adult who's trying too hard), and Stiglich's cartoons are aimed at connecting with youngsters, but the text is scattered and the examples are hard to follow. The book may help grammar aficionados fine-tune their understanding, but it probably won't help others. Glos., ind. (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.
