No reading allowed The worst read-aloud book ever : a confusing collection of hilarious homonyms and sound-alike sentences

Raj Haldar

Book - 2020

You can't believe everything you hear! Did you know that a single word can have many different meanings? Sometimes two words that sound alike can be spelled completely differently! Ptolemy the Pterodactyl is back to show us all how absurd and fun language can be when homophones, homonyms, and tricky punctuation are at play.

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Subjects
Genres
Instructional and educational works
Picture books
Published
Naperville, IL : Sourcebooks eXplore, an imprint of Sourcebooks Kids [2020]
Language
English
Main Author
Raj Haldar (author)
Other Authors
Chris (Christopher James) Carpenter (author), Bryce Gladfelter (illustrator)
Physical Description
1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 22 x 29 cm
Audience
Ages 4 and up.
ISBN
9781728206592
Contents unavailable.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Homophones in versatile parallel sentences create absurd scenarios. The pattern is simple but endlessly funny: Two sentences, each illustrated, sound the same but are differentiated by their use of homophones. On the verso of the opening spread a cartoon restaurant scene shows a diner lifting a plate of spaghetti and meatballs to a waiter who removes a dark hair from the plate of noodles: "The hair came forth." (Both figures have brown skin.) Opposite, the scene shows a race with a tortoise at the finish line while a hare trails the tortoise, a snake, and a snail: "The hare came fourth." The humorous line drawings feature an array of humans, animals, and monsters and provide support and context to the sentences, however bizarre they may seem. New vocabulary is constantly introduced, as is the idea that spelling and punctuation can alter meaning. Some pairings get quite sophisticated; others are rather forced. "The barred man looted the establishment. / The bard man luted the establishment" stretches the concept, paralleling barred with bard as adjectives and looted with luted as verbs. The former is an orange-jumpsuited White prisoner in a cell; the other, a brown-skinned musician strumming a lute for a racially diverse group of dancers. Poetic license may allow for luted, though the word lute is glaringly missing from the detailed glossary. Preposterous situations and farcical sound-alike sentences will elicit groans and giggles. (Informational picture book. 8-12) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.