Punctuation Celebration Book

Punctuation marks come alive in this clever picture book featuring fourteen playful poems. Periods stop sentences in a baker’s shop, commas help a train slow down, quotation marks tell people what to do, and colons stubbornly introduce lists. This appealing primer is a surefire way to make punctuation both accessible and fun for kids.

Children's Literature

Where would we all be without the periods, commas, exclamation and questions marks that show readers what their voices should do, or where to end a sentence or phrase? Those marks and others march across the title page alerting readers to get ready for a Field Day, with punctuation marks playing key roles. Each page shows a mark and how it is used. Not only does the period end sentences, it is needed for abbreviations, while the comma sets off items in a list, separates the day and the year, and city and state. Illustrations show the use of the marks as the text explains them. Classroom teachers in lower grades—four would be pushing the limits—will love the rhyme and vocabulary choices. Short verses do the explanation and show how marks are used. For a first effort this text and the illustrations have a lot going for them. Illustrations are child friendly, along the lines of Giselle Potter's work. This can take a place next to recently published similar books, Eats Shoots and Leaves by Truss, and Ruth Heller's older standbys. Children may not pick this up by themselves, but librarians or classroom teacher s could read it before a class begins their own writing projects. Reviewer: Leslie Greaves Radloff