This is a clever book that makes some good links to grammar.

No one always wants to hear a lesson on grammar over and over. This book is a great read and I think my students have learned from it! I refer back to it often. "Remember what Lynne Truss would do" is something I often say during my writing workshops. Awesome non-fiction read.

I love English, especially its flexibility. Maybe because it has roots in so many different languages (Latin, German, French, and early Brit and Celt just to mention a few), it always seems to be able to absorb any word without it looking silly or jarring to the eye or ear. If you have ever seen a French sentence using a word like Coca-Cola, you'll know what I mean.

However, I don't have the same love of punctuation. I have a tendency to throw in commas willy-nilly, hoping they're in the right place, and don't get me started about semi-colons and colons; I'm sure they were invented just to plague punctuation illiterates like me (ha, I threw one in for fun and I have no idea whether it belongs, nor, to be honest, do I care much). In fact, I always sort of felt that punctuation should be allowed the same freedom as English, to roam free, to dance and sing where ever it wants on a page.

But to author Lynne Truss, I am a punctuation Barbarian and should be buried under a pile of misused apostrophes (my suggestion, not hers). And as much as I still don't share her passion for punctuation, I really enjoyed this little book. She gives lots of entertaining examples of the problems caused by a misplaced comma or an overuse of exclamation points and, after giving it a bit of thought, I can see her point. I love to read but I had never really considered an author's use of colons or apostrophes but now I wonder, would I love Jane Austen as much if her sentences lacked periods? Would Charles Dickens be as much fun to read if he didn't bother with properly placed commas? Would John Steinbeck's works flow so beautifully if he threw in exclamation points at odd places?

I doubt I'll ever fully appreciate the difference between a colon and a semi-colon and I suspect I will still put commas where they don't belong and I definitely will not carry a black marker with me to correct signs which are improperly punctuated. But Truss has given me a new appreciation of the importance of these formerly (by me) under appreciated little dots and dashes and I promise I will try to do better by them in the future.

When children are in the thick of learning punctuation, this is an especially fun book. Funny, too!

Classic

Such a fun book to teach comma usage!

Another collection of alternating uses of punctuation that demonstrate how the same sentence is modified for hilarious results, in this case depending on where you put a comma. This has all the strengths of "Girl's Like Spaghetti," except perhaps that the apostrophe is more egregiously misused. Certainly I see fewer awful errors with commas than I see with apostrophes.

But the book is great, and also has the two-page summary of the contents of the book, which would work nicely as a poster for a classroom or office break area. My favorite example of a "comma mistake?"

"What is this thing called honey?" As a science fiction fan, I am particularly tickled by this, as it hearkens back to all the 50s sci-fi movies wherein a computer or logical alien is defeated by its own befuddlement at emotion: "What is this thing called love? DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE!"

Reading something like this, so obvious and so simple, delights me and at the same time inspires envy. How many of us could have written just such a book, I wonder. The idea is brilliant, and perhaps even more obvious than the original Eats, Shoots and Leaves: of course this sort of thing should be written for children! Those are the people most likely to actually benefit from such instruction! So I wish I'd had this "obvious" insight and written something like it myself.

Rather than get bitter, I am choosing to think instead of how many other opportunities there are to provide similar instruction in a children's book. I could easily write a book on "led" vs. "lead," for instance. Every time someone uses "lead" as a past-tense verb ("That was back when I lead the group"), I grit my teeth. For a long time, I thought it was just limited to people who'd learned English after a first language, as I saw this error committed again and again by people born overseas. Sadly, it's pretty common for native English speakers, too...it's almost ubiquitous here on goodreads, as well. Instead of getting depressed at the state of English, I should have fun with it! I'll write my own book, and the process will be fun though nothing will come of it. I'll keep you posted.

Grade/interest level: Primary
Reading level: 380L (lexile.com)
Genre: Information
Main Characters: n/a
Setting: n/a
POV: n/a

"Eats, Shoots and Leaves" is an adaption from the adult novel about grammar. In this version, students learn about commas through humorous situations, with illustrations to match. Each illustraion shows how the meaning of sentences change depending on where the comma is placed. For instance,

"Slow, children crossing." vs. "Slow children crossing"

"Go, get him doctors!" vs. "Go get him, doctors!"

This book is a great way to explain to students why we need commas and how they can change the meaning of a sentence entirely. The back of the book has a teacher's guide explaining the technical terms for the grammar in each example. This book would be great to use in a minilesson about commas.

The funny little panda story at the beginning and the introduction after it should not be missed.

My favorite line in the book is "What is this thing called honey?"

The end of the book describes the parts of speech and grammatical organization of the sentences in the book.

The fourth grader that I read it with enjoyed it and their favorite part was, "Eat her and get gas."

My daughter complains when I correct her grammar, so I got this book for us to read together. Our favorite page was "Eat here, and get gas." vs. "Eat here and get gas." Grammar is important.

My children really enjoyed reading through this book. We would read one sentence each day and have a good laugh at the different meanings implied according to the punctuation. A fun way to learn. The back of the book includes the explanation for the different meanings.

Let me get this out of the way as soon as possible, this book has absolutely zero story, but that's a GOOD thing. When I read this book in class, I knew I wouldn't be expecting some grand, epic journey, instead I looked at what the book was, a teaching and reference guide, and judged it by that. And you know what? It's pretty good.

The book uses a lot of creative art to illustrate for kids how misplaced commas can affect the meaning of an entire sentence. The art may not be colored, but it is fun and live it enough to keep kids interest and paying attention, forcing them to reread and learn the rules of commas so that they understand why each picture depicts something completely different. Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a fantastic teaching tool for helping kids with commas and I would recommend it for any classroom.