Punctuation Celebration

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Punctuation Celebration Pub. Date: 7/3/2012 Publisher: Square Fish
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Punctuation Celebration (First Edition) Pub. Date: 7/21/2009 Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

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Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

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

School Library Journal

Gr 1-4

Young readers will receive a better-than-average introduction to punctuation marks and their uses in this cheerfully illustrated collection of poems. Each selection presents an individual punctuation mark through rhyming verse: "Ellipsis points...three tiny dots.../Are perfect for those silent spots./Their use, dear reader, is permitted/When certain phrases are omitted." The featured punctuation marks are highlighted in red, and most of the offerings are followed by a rhyming example of the symbol in action. An overarching narrative about a punctuation field day loosely ties the poems together. Bruno's writing is clear and lively throughout, though most children will trip momentarily over her choice of the word "apropos." Bright collages of children of various ethnicities engaged in diverse activities complement the text. Jan Carr's Greedy Apostrophe (Holiday House, 2007), Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Putnam, 2006), and other works have explored individual punctuation marks. Bruno's comprehensive approach to the topic offers good value to smaller collections.-Jayne Damron, Farmington Community Library, MI

More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

A short poem introduces each punctuation mark and explains the rules of its usage, while an example appears on the facing page. The verses explain the rules of punctuation fairly clearly, but the language of the poems often comes across as stilted and forced. Further, although the concepts expressed are simple, the poems sometimes use advanced vocabulary in the service of rhyme and meter: "A question mark is apropos / When there are things you want to know." Thus, this effort makes a better refresher for older children than an initial lesson. Whitehead's gouache-and-cut-paper illustrations portray a multiethnic group of children reading, painting, eating and otherwise engaging in the activities referenced in the poems and examples. These dynamic illustrations add visual interest to the text without overcrowding the pages or distracting from the poems, which are printed in large, clear type, with everything in black except for the featured punctuation mark, which appears in red. For those looking for a quick punctuation review in a fresh style, this will do nicely. (Informational picture book/poetry. 5-10)

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781250003355
Publisher: Square Fish
Publication date: 7/3/2012
Pages: 32
Sales rank: 459,369
Age range: 6 - 9 Years
Product dimensions: 8.50 (w) x 11.00 (h) x 0.01 (d)

Meet the Author

Elsa Knight Bruno taught kindergarten for twenty-nine years. She has published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in many children’s magazines. This is her first picture book. She lives in Sylvania, Ohio.

Jenny Whitehead is the author-illustrator of Holiday Stew: A Kid’s Portion of Holiday and Seasonal Poems and Lunch Box Mail and Other Poems. She lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

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