Children's Books discussion

This month is all about the English language, whether history, etymology, grammar, or collective nouns.
Following are a few of the titles I found in our library system's catalog, but participants are not limited to these books or authors.

The Word Snoop by Ursula Dubosarsky
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really DO Make a Difference! by Lynne Truss
Michael Dahl has written a series of books on parts of speech; here is one example:
Nouns Say What's That?
Brian P. Cleary has written a series of books on parts of speech; here is one example:
To Root, to Toot, to Parachute: What Is a Verb?
Ruth Heller has written a series of books about parts of speech; here is an example:
Many Luscious Lollipops: A Book About Adjectives
A Tower of Giraffes: Animals in Groups by Anna Wright
An Ambush of Tigers: A Wild Gathering of Collective Nouns by Betsy Rosenthal
A Zeal of Zebras: An Alphabet of Collective Nouns by Woop Studios
What Do You Call A Group Of Butterflies? And Other Insect Groups by Emma Nathan

I loved Ruth Heller's books when I was young. Glad to see you've included them here :-) I also enjoyed Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. I likely won't participate this month because I am so backlogged elsewhere but I am glad to see it here and will look forward others adding suggestions to the list as I will likely use titles like this with my sons down the road.

This is not really meant for children, but Understanding and Using English Grammar: Chartbook: A Reference Grammar is a great and concise reference grammar that really should be more well known and used in high school classrooms (sure, it is meant for ESL students, but I actually often find that ESL university students taking my first year German language course have a better grasp of basic grammar concepts just because in their ESL classes they are still being taught English grammar which unfortunately is often no longer the case in standard Canadian and USA high school English classes).

Not being taught English grammar in Canadian and USA high schools is ridiculous IMO.

Beverly wrote: "Not being taught English grammar in Canadian and USA high schools is ridiculous IMO."

Totally ridiculous, but many moronic so-called school boards actually do not even permit grammar being taught. And then we wonder why college and university students cannot write legibly and do not even know what a noun and a verb are. Every time I teach first year German, before I introduce the different verb forms and in particular the the direct object (the accusative case) I have to teach remedial English grammar so my students actually understand that there is a difference between the subject of a sentence and the direct object of a sentence (I use examples and make up exercises, but all of this, English grammar, I was taught in grade seven and eight).

I too love Ruth Heller's books. And I remember getting a kick out of the kid's version of Lynne Truss's bestseller, which is, as you note, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really DO Make a Difference!

My son, in high school at the time, liked my library copy of Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences so much I bought him his own copy.

What call number and/or subject/ keyword searches will get us good results as we search a library's catalog?

So of course Dr. Seuss' classic Green Eggs and Ham is not specifically a picture book featuring the English language. But there is in fact and in my opinion much in Dr. Seuss' presented words that would be great for language arts, for practicing in a fun and rollicking manner certain aspects of English grammar and syntax.

For in Green Eggs and Ham, Dr. Seuss' poetically engaging and also repetitive text with fun and rhythm also introduces children to important tenets of English grammar and word usage (different verb forms, prepositions and negation are prominently featured in Green Eggs and Ham and by repeating the Dr. Seuss's words or by having them read aloud, children learn, children become accustomed to proper preposition usage, the differences between the future and the present tenses of verbs, modal verbs such as "can" and "should" and the position of the negative).

A wonderful, marvellous combination of enjoyment and didactic intent, and highly recommended for both in-class and at home practice/use, and absolutely outstanding for ESL instruction (case in point, in grade four, after my family had immigrated from Germany to Canada, my homeroom teacher used Green Eggs and Ham with me and it definitely made learning English verbs and the many different prepositions much easier and also much more fun to both learn and remember). And not just for children either, as I have also used the Green Eggs and Ham as a fun introductory activity for novice adult ESL learners with lasting and successful results (with the caveat to NOT ONLY use material primarily meant and designated for children with adult learners, but that as a quick activity, Green Eggs and Ham is an enjoyable, teachable interlude).

Cheryl wrote: "What call number and/or subject/ keyword searches will get us good results as we search a library's catalog?"

400 is the broad, general number for languages. English grammar and dictionaries are in the 420s. For keyword searches, I used "English Language grammar juvenile," "English language history juvenile," and English Language-collective nouns juvenile." In our library catalog, "Juvenile" limits my search to books for children.

Manybooks wrote: "So of course Dr. Seuss' classic Green Eggs and Ham is not specifically a picture book featuring the English language. But there is in fact and in my opinion much in Dr. Seuss' presente..."

I never thought of Green Eggs and Ham as being useful in teaching English grammar. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

A Tower of Giraffes: Animals in Groups by Anna Wright
This is a beautiful picture book presenting 16 animal groups, a few on double-page spreads. But I think the book is mostly an excuse for the author/illustrator to showcase her artwork. For many of the depicted animals, Wright uses patterned fabrics for the body of the animal. They are beautiful, but obviously, do not look natural. Other animals are executed in ink and watercolors and look more natural. My favorite is "An Ostentation of Peacocks," in which Wright uses real peacock feathers in the illustrations.

Beverly wrote: "Manybooks wrote: "So of course Dr. Seuss' classic Green Eggs and Ham is not specifically a picture book featuring the English language. But there is in fact and in my opinion much in D..."

I always think that if teachers make grammar fun and engaging, students will both like learning it more and also retain the rules more.

So, I think that I misunderstood at the beginning, or missed the word "English" in the subject title. I've already read the wonderful D Is for Dragon Dance and have Minimus: Starting Out in Latin on deck, but I guess neither of those are what you're looking for - ?

I didn't care for Just Me and 6,000 Rats: A Tale of Conjunctions. It's a funny story, which gives lots of examples, and it has a couple of exercises, but it doesn't actually explain what the heck is going on. When I was a child, we only learned And, But, and Or (and sometimes Nor). My son was the right age to use this when it was new, and he admits that he was never taught much more than that. This has Until, and Although, and a bunch others.

Well, I learned that there are different kinds of conjunctions. I had to look at several websites to find one that included all the different ones in this book. I'm not saying this is the best or most complete website, but it might be a good one for homeschooling families who actually want to go into more depth: https://www.crowdcontent.com/resource....

Cheryl wrote: "I didn't care for Just Me and 6,000 Rats: A Tale of Conjunctions. It's a funny story, which gives lots of examples, and it has a couple of exercises, but it doesn't actually explain ..."

I was aware of coordinating and subordinating conjunctions, but even though I use correlative conjunctions regularly I did not realise they are in fact conjunctions, same with the adverbial ones.

Cheryl wrote: "So, I think that I misunderstood at the beginning, or missed the word "English" in the subject title. I've already read the wonderful D Is for Dragon Dance and have [book:Minimus: Sta..."

I have no problem with you posting about those books here, but, yes, the emphasis is on English language.

Some books I've loved fit here, for the word-play.
The Phantom Tollbooth advocates for the joy of learning the richness of both language and maths.
The Wonderful O is one of Thurber's fables for all ages, imagining what our language would look like if the letter O were nt allwed.... But of course it's about more than that, it is a literary fable. And consider that E is famously the most common letter so why didn't Thurber use E instead - ?
Don't forget Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and other works by Carroll.
My youngest son and I, when he was about 10 iirc, enjoyed A Children's Almanac of Words at Play and I will try to use this excuse to read it again!

The Encyclopedia Brown series has some puzzles that involve a knowledge of vocabulary and ability to play with language. The trilogy The Gollywhopper Games has a bunch, too. I don't recall for sure, but I'd be willing to bet that Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library did as well.

Do any of you know any more sources of these kinds of puzzles?

I have read a couple of children's mystery series in which solving puzzles is required:
The Ring of Rocamadour by Michael D. Beil, is the first in the Red Blazer Girls series of 4 books.
The Puzzling World of Winston Breen by Eric Berlin is the first of 3 books in the series with the same name as the first book.

I really appreciated what you had to say about Dr Suess. I wrote a book of children's poetry once and relied on meter and rhyme to carry the day in what was perhaps an old fashioned but sincere attempt to evoke wonder and delight. Certainly Dr Suess does that for us. I'm glad you mentioned the strength of his writing to help understand and learn the English language, a designation all poets would love to have,

Beverly wrote: "I have read a couple of children's mystery series in which solving puzzles is required:
The Ring of Rocamadour by Michael D. Beil, is the first in the Red Blazer Gir..."

Thank you!

Of course, Du Iz Tak? is NOT a book about the English language, but a story where the featured bugs are conversing in an artificial, in a made up language. But as even artificial languages usually tend to follow general basic grammar and syntax rules, in my opinion, Du Iz Tak? could also be used to teach basic grammar concepts and such in general (both with children, but also with adults).

Honestly, Carson Ellis' absolutely delightful Du Iz Tak? (What is That?) is for me not only a perfect picture book both illustratively and textually, but is also a book which I dearly wish I could rate with more than the five star maximum allowed by Goodreads (as in my opinion, Du Iz Tak? is a ten star offering, a glowingly amazing and evocative homage to life, to the seasons, to imagination and fun, and to have a text, to have a narrative that presents an invented language, well, for linguistically inclined and interested me, that was and is truly the appreciated icing on an already most delightful and delicious cake).

And aside from the fact that I do oh so much love love love the illustrations, the both detailed and also sweetly simple and colourful renderings of imagined insect life (and really, truly, I for one have enjoyed Carson Ellis' pictorial images and colour schemes so much that I am indeed feeling a tiny bit grumpy that Du Iz Tak? has ONLY won a 2017 Caldecott Honour designation and not the actual Caldecott Medal), in this here review, I will and of course mostly be waxing poetic with regard to the presented narrative, with regard to the author's invented text, an "artificial" language that is both simple and profound, and a constructed narrative that actually (or at least this has been the case for me) has been relatively easy to figure out simply by using the context of the illustrations and basic universal language rules and facts.

Of course, that Carson Ellis has remained basically close to the general word order of the English language (and with that I mean that her presented "insect" sentences generally follow a subject-verb-predicate order) this does indeed make trying to figure out what the invented words and sentences might (or do) mean considerably easier (as there are also languages with word orders that are the inverse, where for example the direct or indirect objects actually tend to come come before the subject, or the German language, where no matter what one puts in first position, the second position in a main clause always has to be occupied by the conjugated verb), but still Du Iz Tak? is a delightfully challenging and engaging basic language concepts learning exercise tool, a wonderful and oh so much fun activity that can (due to the language of the narrative being invented and thus artificial) be used in many different ways and means to show, to practice, to engage students in a fun and unthreatening, non grammar and translation method type of language learning and teaching (and I do know one thing, that the next time, I am teaching a first year German college or university language course, I will very likely if not definitely be using Du Iz Tak? to get my students used to basic remedial grammar rules in general, something that I often and unfortunately have to do, since at the primary and secondary level, basic grammar is now often not even being taught anymore and often actually not allowed by school boards to be taught, and students thus often come into an elementary post secondary foreign language course not even knowing the differences between subject and verb, that questions have different punctuation requirements etc.).

Highly recommended is Du Iz Tak?, especially for those of us who love word and language-based riddles and games (and really, if you take your time with the text, and think back to language as a construct and if you also use the accompanying illustrations as a bit of a guide, you should be able to easily figure out all if not most of the presented story, of Carson Ellis' invented insect language).

And by the way, whilst reading Du Iz Tak? for the first time, I did have a few minor little possible comprehension issues with the fact that some of the words presented by author Carson Ellis as her invented insect tongue seem to have been gleaned verbatim from commonly used languages such as German and Danish (for example the "du" of the title, which is supposed to mean "what" in German means "you" and "tak" which is supposed to mean "that" in Carson Ellis' insect lingo is the Danish word for "thank you" and thus when I originally started perusing the invented language text of Du Iz Tak, the former did interfere a bit and somewhat distract me), but not enough to consider anything but a glowing and shining five stars for this absolute treasure and pleasure of a picture book (and I actually seriously doubt that the author is even all that aware of the fact that some of her artificial insect speak appears in languages such as German and Danish, I mean, I only noticed this because I happen to speak German and have tried to read Danish on occasion).

Susan wrote: "I really appreciated what you had to say about Dr Suess. I wrote a book of children's poetry once and relied on meter and rhyme to carry the day in what was perhaps an old fashioned but sincere att..."

I think a lot of Dr. Seuss can likely be used for language and words practice, but it is with Green Eggs and Ham that I got my so called aha moment, when I realised just how the poetic verses of Green Eggs and Ham were featuring very specific aspects of English grammar and word usage.

Under, Over, by the Clover: What Is a Preposition? starts with a definition of a preposition as "A word that connects a noun or pronoun to other words in a sentence." I kid you not.

The text itself is accurate enough, but the pictures and sort-of-story are probably so amusing and distracting that a learner will not get much out of this book.

No 'further reading,' no lesson plan suggestions or bonus activities.

Read Behind the Mask: A Book about Prepositions instead. While it's true that the pictures there are beautiful, they aren't as distracting, as there's no story arc. And while it's true that there are no addendum there, either, the book itself is an effective lesson.

edit: I had the exact same reaction to Cleary's book about pronouns. Again, read Heller instead. I am reading no more by Cleary.

Sioux Code Talkers of World War II isn't about the English language per se* but it's a book I discovered at my library while searching for this theme.

My library labels it Juv, the blurb on the back labeled it YA, and although it's short, it's dense with information, ideas, and excitement and so is suitable for adults, too. I found it fascinating even though I don't much care for history. You've heard of the Navajo Code Talkers, now read about their counterparts from the northern plains and their service to this country. Meet many individuals from WWII and from history before that era, too.

It's also OwnVoices, with photos and primary sources, an introduction, bibliography, and other appendices, including a wonderful teachers' guide. Page is a teacher, and a dedicated researcher, and this is a book that should be in every Middle School library.

What a serendipitous find! Thank you, Beverly, for enabling me to discover this!

*There is one sorta funny bit, about Japanese who had learned English, even learned to sing "The Yellow Rose of Texas," but usually could not fool the American soldiers.

101 More Words and How They Began would be neat, but the first word I looked up in this older book, Eskimo, they got wrong... not good odds the rest of the book is perfect. Too bad. Etymology is both fascinating and worthwhile, but only when it actually is correct, so I recommend learners find other books or websites.

Likewise, I'm not sure of the accuracy of everything in Gobble: The Complete Book of Thanksgiving Words, from 1991. There is a bibliography, and a 'further reading' list. My recommendation? Use in a homeschool, and each year research a few of the entries to confirm the accuracy and learn more details. For example, Henry VIII's divorces and remarriages are mentioned (in re' Puritan history), but not the reasons why (in large part, because he needed a male heir). This book is for, I believe, grade 5 and up.

What Do You Call A Group Of Butterflies? And Other Insect Groups by Emma Nathan
This short book is suitable for pre-school children and primary grade children. A large photo of the insect is on the right side of the page, with the question: "What do you call a group of _____?" The reader must turn the page to find the answer, plus a short paragraph with further information about the insect. Ten different insect groups are presented. The book includes a glossary, short bibliography, 2 websites, and an index. That is a lot to pack into a 24-page book!

Not so much for children to read by themselves, grammar games books are great teaching resources. And while most of the following tomes are actually meant more for EFL and ESL students, they can in my opinion and I think also should be used for making grammar instruction more interesting and fun for native English speakers (either for home-schooling or in class, if grammar is still being actually taught, and yes, grammar games definitely make language learning much more engaging and also much more interactive).

Jumpstart! Grammar: Games and Activities for Ages 6 - 14 (there is an earlier edition as well, and I do think these games can also be used with and for adult learners)

Grammar Games: Cognitive, Affective and Drama Activities for EFL Students

Grammar Games and Activities for Teachers

Grammar Puzzles & Games Kids Can't Resist!: 40-Super-Cool Crosswords, Codes, Mazes, & More That Teach the Essential Rules of Grammar

Beverly wrote: "What Do You Call A Group Of Butterflies? And Other Insect Groups by Emma Nathan
This short book is suitable for pre-school children and primary grade children. A lar..."

That sounds fascinating... adding!

For the very youngest independent reader, there are books in the series that includes Comma. I love the photos, including a Black boy in a superhero cape and another one reading a book. The book feels lovingly inclusive, not like it's checking off token characters.

I especially appreciate the appendix called Words I Can Read, which is a list of the words in the book sorted into nouns, pronouns, etc. Each category is defined ("An adverb tells how, when, or where something happens" and each word also has a simplified pronunciation guide (knows = NOHZ and comma = KOM-uh).

So, I actually have a grammar question. Just for fun, and because it's easier than googling for the answer, I'm asking you folks!

"You can't join our boys only club" requires what punctuation? An apostrophe before or after the s of boys, or none? Any hyphens, commas, anything?

Cheryl wrote: "So, I actually have a grammar question. Just for fun, and because it's easier than googling for the answer, I'm asking you folks!

"You can't join our boys only club" requires what punctuation? An..."


I would write it this way:

You can’t join our boys only club.

But if you wanted to be emphatic, you could of course use an exclamation mark instead of a period.

No apostrophe after boys, in my opinion, as that would make it a possessive.

As a reader with an interest in etymology, I actually did not really all that much enjoy P is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever (as I was wanting supplemental linguistic details and also found the illustrations not really to my tastes).

But to introduce some of the vagrancies of English spelling to older children (and not to linguists) P is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever does kind of work and is engagingly humorous.

A great picture (and also kind of a series of small picture stories) English vocabulary book for children is Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever (the more recent editions have had some editing and removals, which I kind of find annoying as it encourages discussion, but my favourite is the English/German/French edition we had when I was a child).

The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage Without Apostrophes! looks good.

Let's Eat Grandma! a Life-Saving Guide to Grammar and Punctuation is recomended for ages 9+. It looks funny. That comma saves lives!

Do schools not teach grammar anymore? The Kindle Unlimited books I've been reading always contain grammatical errors that make me wince. Authors need that spaghetti book! They also need to learn spelling. When did alright become a word? That one is my big pet peeve and it's even in the dictionary now!

QNPoohBear wrote: "The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage Without Apostrophes! looks good.

Let's Eat Grandma! a Life-Saving Guide to Grammar and Punctuation is recomended for a..."

In Ontario, high school English teachers have frequently been literally forced by school boards to not teach grammar and that students should just learn proper grammar (as well as proper writing) through so called osmosis. It is ridiculous and you end up with students graduating and starting university who do not know how to pen a proper essay and who do not know the difference between a noun and a verb and what makes the subject of a sentence different from the direct object. It is not only frustrating but for me as a German language teacher it is often also also much extra work as I often have to teach remedial English grammar before introducing a German grammar concept. Fact is that in my first year German classes, ESL students generally get the better marks and have less grammatical issues because ESL classes still tend to teach grammar.

QNPoohBear wrote: "The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage Without Apostrophes! looks good.

Let's Eat Grandma! a Life-Saving Guide to Grammar and Punctuation is recomended for a..."

I was able to find the Lynne Truss book in our library catalog and put it on hold, but our system does not have the Let's Eat Grandma book (and it sounds like a riot).

There are some really great punctuation memes out there!
https://images.app.goo.gl/BoCtuNPWTVG...

https://some.ly/UpE63i/

I was terrible at grammar in junior high but I'm glad we learned it. I do remember learning grammar in French class and that was hard. I didn't get that far in Spanish. I wish people would learn the difference between parent's house and parents' house, The Smiths and The Smith's.

For me, doing a graduate degree in German language and literature also meant learning how to teach German grammar, because you need to show the students the ins and outs and they are not going to learn if a native German speaker says about a grammar point "well, this sounds right" but cannot actually explain it.

And if anyone has not seen this music video from Weird Al, it is a hilarious take on English grammar mistakes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H...

The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage Without Apostrophes! by Lynne Truss

A fitting and very humorous companion to her famous book on comma placement. She graphically shows how the placement of an apostrophe drastically alters the sense of a phrase or sentence.

Beverly wrote: "The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage Without Apostrophes! by Lynne Truss

A fitting and very humorous companion to her famous book on comma placement. She gra..."

Does she only give examples or does she us a combination of examples and explanations? I usually would need both.

Manybooks wrote: "Does she only give examples or does she us a combination of examples and explanations? I usually would need both.

The introduction at the very front of the book explains the different uses of the apostrophe. Then the rest of the book are double page examples of the use of the apostrophe in the same sentence or phrase. One of my favorites: (left side) "Those smelly things are my brother's." (facing page) "Those smelly things are my brothers."

Beverly wrote: "Manybooks wrote: "Does she only give examples or does she us a combination of examples and explanations? I usually would need both.

The introduction at the very front of the book explains the diff..."

Ha, but it might actually be true. Great example, though.

The Word Snoop by Ursula Dubosarsky is a delightful romp through the English language. The author is Australian, but the book works perfectly fine for US English (and, I assume, Canadian English & UK English). She begins with the history of the alphabet, and continues with the vagaries of spelling and punctuation. Then she covers a variety of other topics, including anagrams, pangrams, acronyms, backronyms, palindromes, oxymorons, Pig Latin, puns, mondegreens, onomatopoeia, and more. She takes a humorous approach to the subject, and includes brief quizzes along the way. This was a 5-star, slam-dunk for me.

Oh that does sound delightful. I'll have to quest for it. ;)
Edit: It's on openlibrary! I currently have it for 14 days but I'll try to read it in a timely manner and make it avl. to others.

Twenty-Odd Ducks: Why, Every Punctuation Mark Counts! by Lynne Truss

Truss gives a number of examples of the way in which punctuation can change the meaning of a sentence or phrase; for example, "twenty-odd ducks" is quite different from "twenty odd ducks." Another pairing that I really liked is:
"The queen: without her, dinner is noisy." compared to "The queen, without her dinner, is noisy." There are several other amusing examples. In the back of the book, Truss gives explanations for each of her examples. This author has a talented and witty way to impart information about English grammar.

Punctuation Power

Although Marvin Terban's Punctuation Power (which was originally published in 2000) is not really a book that most children (older children from about the age of ten or so onwards) and likely even many adults would tend to find engaging and fun, personally, I do indeed consider Punctuation Power to be a simply wonderful language based reference guide, a book that perhaps a bit pedantically but always and thankfully so clearly and concisely explains everything a student really needs to know about English punctuation and equally why using punctuation correctly is so very much essential if one wants to present clear, precise and thus not vague or potentially confusing writing (from apostrophes to when to use underlines, and I certainly have found it a positive that Punctuation Power considers ALL punctuation of equal importance and necessary to be depicted and explained, that Marvin Terban does not for example limit himself to explaining commas, periods and question marks).

With the second part of Punctuation Power (after the diverse types of punctuations have been in detail introduced and described in part one) showing students, showing readers how to write bibliographies, direct quotations, play scripts and the different types of standard English language sentences, and albeit that Punctuation Power is indeed totally textbook like in both scope and feel, I do think that the author, that Marvin Terban absolutely and completely succeeds with regard to introducing English punctuation in a clear and easy to grasp manner, without making his text and his examples in any manner difficult or confusing. And therefore, I do indeed highly and warmly recommend Punctuation Power for both classroom and also homeschooling use, as not something to likely ever be read from cover to cover (except perhaps for word and language nerds like myself), but to be made use of as the need arrises (and yes, that it in all likelihood will).

Breezier, Cheesier, Newest, and Bluest

Well with regard to the accompanying artwork for his 2012 English grammar picture book Breezier, Cheesier, Newest, and Bluest Brian P. Cleary’s illustrations are truly not at all to my visual tastes (too garishly gaudy, too cartoon like and sometimes even a trifle overly creepy for me and my personal aesthetics). And furthermore, I also thus tend to believe that the featured pictorial images do not really always do a great job mirroring the presented text and of course also and equally so vice versa.

However and the above having been said, I actually do still consider that printed words wise, Brian P. Cleary has for the most part done a pretty decent job introducing comparatives and superlatives in Breezier, Cheesier, Newest, and Bluest to children just learning the ins, the outs, the intricacies and vagrancies of the former, thankfully and appreciatively keeping mostly to easy for children to understand examples, showing the many different ways the English language compares and contrasts adjectives (and adverbs).

And albeit that my older adult self does kind of want more supplemental explanation and details (in particular with regard to when to use the "er" or "est" suffixes and when one needs to use more or most), my inner child also realises that for a basic introduction to English comparatives and superlatives, Breezier, Cheesier, Newest, and Bluest does indeed and in my humble opinion successfully fit the proverbial bill so to speak, since it indeed features a generally good and balanced enough selection of not too difficult printed examples and accompanying artwork (and yes, even though I have personally not at all liked the illustrations). And as such Brian J. Cleary's Breezier, Cheesier, Newest, and Bluest certainly shows a nicely basic introduction to an English language grammar topic that often does tend to befuddle and confuse novices (although in my humble opinion, the very handy and appreciated section on how to specifically form superlatives and comparatives, the actual grammatical rules instructions, they should really be located at the beginning of Breezier, Cheesier, Newest, and Bluest and not near the end of the book).

I ended up abandoning The Word Snoop.

So perhaps Ursula Duborsarsky's 2007 The Word Snoop might possibly get better and above all less replete with factual linguistic (as well as historical) errors as her text progresses. However, I am not feeling at all patient today and after repeatedly having to read in the introductory section of The Word Snoop, after oh so often being confronted with and by Dubosarsky's assertion in How it all began that the Angles, Saxons and Jutes supposedly all hailed from Germany and spoke German, I have decided to quit.

Yes, Ms. Duborsarsky, what is now England was indeed invaded (not visited, but invaded) by the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, but at that time (in the very early Middle Ages), there was of course NOT YET a Germany as Germany as a country actually would not even exist until 1871 (and to call from where the Angles, Saxons and Jutes hailed Germany is thus both factually wrong and even rather majorly ridiculous, since many of those specific areas are in fact not even part of Germany proper now anyhow). Also, calling the Angles, Saxons and Jutes Germans instead of Germanic tribes really does tend to make me feel more than a bit uncomfortable, because in the 1930s, Adolf Hitler equally tried to label the English as being German and as such of course also being part of his so-called master race.

Finally and furthermore, with regard to Anglo-Saxon as a language, while it is of course considered a Western Germanic tongue, related to Dutch and German, NO linguist actually worth his or her salt would ever consider Anglo-Saxon as being German and vice versa (since they are related languages, related dialects, but not the same, with indeed, Anglo-Saxon in fact being considerably closer to modern Friesian than to modern German). And while I perhaps should consider continuing with The Word Snoop, sorry, but I do tend to get majorly annoyed at blatant errors in non fiction (and especially so in non fiction geared towards younger readers) and yes, both the frustrating errors encountered in the first section of The Word Snoop and that Ursula Duborsarsky has also not bothered with a bibliography, this has definitely and certainly made me abandon The Word Snoop and to only consider but one star as a rating.