Punctuation Takes a Vacation

January 20, 2003
This entertaining tale-cum-grammar lesson begins when, after days of teaching about commas, periods and question marks, Mr. Wright suggests to his class, "Let's give punctuation a vacation." While the students run cheering to the playground, the punctuation marks left on the blackboard take his words literally and head off for a holiday. Reed paints with a funky, naïf style using zippy oranges, teals, purples and cobalt blues. Facial features as elemental as jack-o-lanterns and bodies as rubbery as Gumby heighten the fun as the quotation marks sunbathe side by side, the apostrophe waterskis and the exclamation point goes tubing. Each of the comical postcards they mail back to the class offers a clue as to its sender: "Do you miss us? How much? Why couldn't we take a vacation sooner? Guess who?" The mayhem left in the vacationers' absence is just as funny. When Mr. Wright begins to read from a book, he observes: "This is weird the punctuation is missing uh oh where could it be yikes." While spinning this amusing tale, Pulver (Mrs. Toggle's Class Picture Day) manages to teach a good deal about punctuation (a list of clearly explained usage rules appears at the end). Little will children realize how much they are learning, between the verbal shenanigans and the eye-popping illustrations. Ages 5-8.

Starred review from April 1, 2003
Gr 1-3-"Day after day, the punctuation marks showed up in Mr. Wright's classroom. Day after day, they did their jobs. They put up with being erased and replaced and corrected and ignored and moved around." Miffed when the teacher quips, "Let's give punctuation a vacation," the various marks decide to take a trip and rush out the door. The class misses them almost immediately, as nothing the students read or write makes any sense without them. The vacationers send postcards back to the class requiring the children to dissect the clever wordplay and figure out which marks sent which cards. The youngsters send their own card apologizing, and all ends happily as the punctuation marks return and order is restored. Pulver's clever story moves along at a nice clip and makes its point without belaboring the matter. Reed's acrylics-on-canvas illustrations are rich in color and texture, and add to the amusement of the story. A lighthearted choice to be read independently or used to introduce a language-arts lesson.-Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ

Copyright 2003 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2003
Gr. 1-3. On the hottest day Mr. Wright's class has ever seen, the teacher gives punctuation a vacation! Insulted, the punctuation marks take off, and a few days later postcards arrive from Take-a-Break Lake. The kids want to write back, but they can't without any punctuation. Borrowing the unruly marks from the class next door, they write a letter begging the marks to return, a letter filled with usage errors that effectively makes their case. Childlike acrylic paintings on canvas "punctuate" the zaniness by turning the marks into characters whose banter exemplifies the marks' use. The messages on the postcards further typify usage (e.g., "Do you miss us? How much? Why couldn't we take a vacation sooner? Guess who?"). A straightforward list of punctuation rules rounds out this inventive and entertaining device for getting kids to understand usage, which proves that nothing makes sense without punctuation. Right? Right!(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)