This picture book uses illustrations to show the importance of correct comma usage. Without correct comma placement, the entire meaning of a sentence can change, as seen in these hilarious sentences and illustrations. Commas are so important, and students will get a kick out of these books.

I can't wait to buy this book and have it in my classroom! Commas are so important, and sometimes the rules can be tricky. By showing students these hilarious examples, maybe they would remember the rules. It would be a fun activity to have students create and illustrate these types of sentences.

Books to connect with:
The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage without Apostrophes by Lynne Truss
Twenty-Odd Dycks: Why, every punctuation mark counts! by Lynne Truss
Other grammar books

"Eat here, and get gas.
Eat here and get gas."

A picture book that speaks to the importance of commas by juxtaposing two sentences with the same words but commas placed differently. The illustrations help to drive the comical point across as to how comma placement does make such a difference. In the back are explanations of the grammar to each page.

This is a funny book with great illustrations. It is about how different sentences are whether there's a comma or not.

This book is perfect for teachers who are presenting a unit on how to use commas, with kid-friendly humorous sentences and corresponding illustrations of how the movement of a comma or its omission can change the meanings of the sentences. Amusing, but I still feel rather confused on independent vs. dependent clauses, modifiers, etc. So good luck trying to explain all that to the kiddos because even adults don't get it.

I thought that this book was hilarious! It brought back great memories of when I first read it in elementary! I honestly laughed out loud and certain parts! This was a very clever write and I enjoyed it all the way through!

A cute read that illustrates (literally) how moving a comma just one word away from its appropriate place will drastically change the meaning of the entire sentence. Simple, colorful cartoons make these examples shine. Some are quite comical.

This book contained a dozen or so examples of how things can go wrong if you put your commas in the wrong place, or omit them entirely, with humorous results. I admit it was pretty clever, and they managed to find a lot of variations on this theme, but it was much, much shorter than I imagined, which kind of raises the question of whether this idea should have been turned into a book at all. I noticed that it also comes as a wall calendar, which might make more sense. Still I enjoyed what there was of it, and it was done well. So let's just call it 3 stars.

As an aside, I noticed that the illustrator tried to give some racial diversity to the book, which I applaud their intent, but the actual effect seemed a bit biased: whenever one person or a small group of people was the focus of the text, they were always "white", while characters with any shading were always background, supporting characters. Enough repetitions of this, and it started to detract from the content for me at least.

If you want a funny way to teach kids about commas, this is definitely your chance.

This book was fun, in a nerdy, pedantic kind of way. I teach English and do a lot of proofreading as well so grammar is very important to me - but I don't feel as militant as the author about it. Fun but no more than that.

Demonstrates through cute illustrations of situations how a comma can completely change the meaning of a sentence.

Lynne Truss has adapted her semi-famous book Eats, Shoots, & Leaves into three picture books (so far). What a great way to visually illustrate the impact punctuation has on the meaning of sentences! The rules really are quite simple and greatly enhance communication, and yet so many people screw them up constantly. This book puts the same sentence side by side on facing pages but changes the commas and uses illustrations to demonstrate the different meanings. Then at the end, there are two pages that give a little more info about the rules for each version of each sentence.

The only sentence pair I didn't like was the one with the squinting modifier about the boy & the duck: "Becky teased the boy with the fluffy duck./Becky teased the boy, with the fluffy duck." The second option just feels wrong to me. "With the fluffy duck" is a fragment. In real life, if I had to use that sentence, I probably would have rewritten it to say, "Becky used the fluffy duck to tease the boy." Surely Truss could have picked a better example?

Ah well, the rest of the examples are good. And readers young and old will enjoy the funny drawings by Bonnie Timmons. Readers will also enjoy Truss's other picture books, The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage Without Apostrophes! and Twenty-Odd Ducks: Why, Every Punctuation Mark Counts!.

Great read