Nouns Say "What's That?"

June 1, 2019
Anthropomorphized representations of a person, a place, and a thing introduce readers to nouns. The protagonists are Person, a green, hairy, Cousin Itt-looking blob; Place, a round, blue, globe-ish being (stereotypically implied female by eyelashes and round pigtails); and Thing, a pink cloud with limbs, a porkpie hat, and red glasses. They first introduce the word "noun" and then start pointing out the nouns that fall under each of their categories. In their speech balloons, these vocabulary words are set in type that corresponds to the speaker's color: "Each wheel is a thing noun," says Thing, and "wheel" is set in red. Readers join the three as they visit a museum, pointing out the nouns they see along the way and introducing proper and collective nouns and ways to make nouns plural. Confusingly, though, Person labels the "bus driver" a "person noun" on one page, but two spreads later, Thing says "Abdar is a guard. Mrs. Mooney is a ticket taker. Their jobs are things that are also nouns." Similarly, a group of athletes is a person noun--"team"--but "flock" and "pack" are things. Lowen's digital illustrations portray a huge variety of people who display many skin and hair colors, differing abilities, and even religious and/or cultural markers (though no one is overweight). Backmatter includes a summary of noun facts, a glossary, an index (not seen), critical-thinking questions, and a list of further reading. Books on seven other parts of speech release simultaneously. This ambitious introduction to an important concept tries too hard to pigeonhole people, places, and things. (Informational picture book. 5-8)

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September 9, 2019
Personified as colorful monsters in this grammatical learning journey, nouns Person, Place, and Thing head via bus to a museum (“a place noun”) to find their ilk—words that “give names to the world around us.” Throughout the trip, they point out proper, plural, irregular, and collective nouns, and the rules associated with them (“proper nouns... always begin with a capital letter”; “nouns that become plural in an unusual way are called irregular nouns”). And nouns are labeled within Lowen’s muted, cartoon-like illustrations (“statue,” “dog”), further clarifying the part of speech in each spread. While the narrative amounts to little more than a listing of words, the spreads build upon each other, connected by recurring characters and related concepts, to create a remarkably digestible educational tool. A brief yet comprehensive guide to nouns of all kinds. Ages 5–8.

November 1, 2019

K-Gr 3-The different parts of speech, from nouns to adjectives to conjunctions, are brought to life in these vibrant volumes directed at developing writers. With brightly colored illustrations and lovable cartoon characters, "Word Adventures" is eye-catching and will have wide appeal for a series on grammar. Each title places the parts of speech in a scenario (the nouns go to the museum, the conjunctions are camping) to explain how they work. Speech bubbles, along with text colors to highlight the parts of speech in action, are effective in showing how they function in context. The clever asides are engaging and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. While these are intended for a primary audience, they could also be useful for upper elementary students needing a grammar refresh. VERDICT These charming titles are a first purchase for elementary language arts collections.

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