Robin Pulver
1 Engaging approach makes learning fun
Where would we be without punctuation? And how can teachers and parents impress its importance upon young children? Fortunately, author Robin Pulver has a light-hearted, kid-friendly solution. The book's clever storyline has a classroom teacher banishing punctuation for the day, only to have the feisty marks deciding to go on vacation. Result: the class can't write anything intelligible and begs for the errant marks to return. Young readers will learn that punctuation is there to help. Great illustrations, great fun.
Considering how many students reach high school without clearly understanding the rules of punctuation, it's wonderful to have a book that catches children when they're young. Kudos to Robin Pulver and Lynn Rowe Reed for this terrific book!
Readers who enjoy "Punctuation" may also enjoy another quality children's book entitled Ruby Lee The Bumble Bee: A Bee's Bit of Wisdom.
2 A Groundbreaking Title
I've been using this book with teachers, librarians, parents, and, best of all, children, over the past year now, and it is a delight. Complex, wildly original, humorous, and meaty, too, this is one glorious read-aloud.
Lynn Truss is still on the Best Seller lists for her Eats Shoots and Leaves, for the grownup set, and Pulver's contribution to the genre is every bit as memorable. As you can see everywhere you read, people have trouble with the dreaded comma and apostrophe. Pulver has taken the sting out of punctuation and made those little marks our pals. When one becomes friends with periods, commas, and exclamation points, one tends to be much less careless about treating them in a cavalier fashion.
As for the hoo ha and hubbub about racial stereotyping in the book, debated on this site, this is an unfortunate distraction and an unwarranted criticism. Two male teachers in an elementary school! Wow! We should be cheering. Of all the many folks with whom I've shared this book, I haven't seen any reaction except laughter and sustained affection. OK, so maybe Mr. Wrongo is a left-brained guy who likes math better than language. So punctuation runs wild in his room. When I read this with several classes of second graders, they had a blast trying to correct the wacky letter Mr. Wright's class concocts.
We've made punctuation puppets, written giant sentence banners that kids punctuated with their puppets, and devised sound effects and hand signs for each punctuation mark. Every classroom teacher from grades 1-5, and then some, will find a memorable way to use this book. One tenth grade English teacher told me she read it aloud to her classes and they loved it. And one mom told me her kindergarten daughter insisted it be read to her, night after night, at bedtime. Just think what her dreams must have been like.
Pulver's warm and humorous writing will lead you to her other titles as well. I can't wait to see what she writes next.
3 Punctuation Takes a Vacation
To:"Racially Disrespectful"
Learn how to spell and get a life!
4 Perfect for teachers
As a third grade teacher in Houston (and previously Atlanta and New York City), I have found this book to be an extremely effective and entertaining source for teaching my students the importance of punctuation.
Having always taught in a culturally diverse environment, and being Latin myself, I am astounded by Sheila L's comments regarding underlying racism in this book. I would like to invite her to my class in order to see racial harmony in action, and perhaps she could learn how to differentiate between "there" and "their", as most of my third graders have already learned.
5 Makes Learning Fun!
This is a great book. It makes the usually boring task of teaching punctuation fun and exciting. It teaches the importance of proper punctuation and how necessary it is to convey ourselves well.
My apologies, but I too feel compelled to comment on the review left by Sheila L.
Being in a racially mixed marriage and the mother of four beautiful, racially mixed children, whom I also happen to homeschool this review upset me more than a little.
My children and I did not pick up on the "subtle" racial inference. And had Mr. Wright been of a darker ethnicity and Mr. Rongo been Caucasian (yes, that's how it's spelled) I'm sure that you would have had no problems with that. The real promoters of racism in our culture are people like you who think that everything and everyone is out to get them. People who love thinking that they are being held down by "the man". Get over yourself. America is a melting pot of beautiful and culturally rich individuals, every one. And to the author of this lovely book I would like to say, "Well done!" Thank you for loving children and giving parents and teachers and wonderful tool to help us make learning fun!
6 Clever
Teaching old dogs new tricks with the original angle of personifying punctuation. "Why do we have to study this?" can be addressed in a refreshing manner. With respect to the racial overtones--give me a break. Why use "subtle" when your inferences (as misguided as they are) are anything but subtle. The author takes a refreshing approach to a subject that has the effects of an antisthetic, keeping the audience's attention, rather than inducing sleep and someone in the audience, groping blindly for a mask of self righteousness, shouts "racist!" Because of "subtle" innuendos? Avoid dragging personal issues to the reviews. Great Book
7 Comment on the politically correct reviewer
Persons who are going to homeschool their children should know how to spell "proper", "stereotype", and the difference between "their" and "there".
8 this book is not racist
I was dismayed and saddened to see the customer review saying that this book is racist. That comment reveals more about the "politically correct" sensibilities of the reader, I suspect, than about the spirit of the book as a whole. We will truly be a healthy society when people of all colors and sexes can be depicted in all their humanity, both good and bad. It would have been all right, I suppose, for Mr. Rongo to be white and Mr. Wright to be darker-skinned. What are we to make of the fact that the punctuation marks themselves have yellow, pink, green, and blue faces? Is there an insidious message there, as well? I wish we could all relax a little, enjoy a sweet and clever book, and and stop being so ready to find offense.
9 Racially Disrespectful
I rescently read this book to my two very young and impressionable daughters. It was supposed to be for their enjoyment but turned out to be quite disappointing. The information on punctuation is expressed well enough for the average child to understand however the subtle racist ideas that this book promotes was more than obvious to my five and eight year old homeschooled, ethnic daughters. The idea that Mr. Wright's class (a caucasion man and teacher) was well organized, orderly and propper as the marks of punctuation can do for anyones writing once they know how to use them: And that Mr. Rongo's class (a man and teacher of color) was wild and disorderly with marks of punctuation that didn't know there propper place, was easily detected by my daughters as well as myself. I was outraged. I am not sure that the author took into account the intelligence level of the children that would read her book and discover the subtle racial sterio type it engenders. Nor do I think that she considered that any parents would read it, see it and know it for what it is. I would not refer this book to anyone with a racially moral conscience. It is too disturbing to learn how early the racism is instilled in our young and on what level they are promoting it.
10 A World Without Punctuation?
This is a great tool for showing children the importance of punctuation in a fun format. In this book a teacher decides to give punctuation a vacation. Postcards arrive and the reader has to guess which form of punctuation wrote it to the class. Children are able to make connections to the chaos of not having punctuation and how it impacts understanding. Fortunately, punctuation returns and classroom life is much improved. I recommend this book.
11 Rip Roarin' Grammar Romp.....
"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. Then on the hottest, stickiest day the class had ever seen, right in the middle of a lesson about commas, Mr Wright mopped his forehead and said, "Let's give punctuation a vacation..." Those cruel kids cheered and ran out to the playground. The punctuation marks looked at each other in disbelief and grew angry, very angry. If the kids could take a break, well they could too. And with that, they rushed out the door and left school on a little vacation of their own. When Mr. Wright's class returned, they discovered a big problem. They couldn't read or write or learn. In fact, nothing made any sense at all without punctuation. A few days later, some rather unusual postcards began to arrive from Take-a-Break Lake..... Author, Robin Pulver's zany and engaging story is a lesson in disguise, filled with droll humor, clever wordplay, silly sound effects, and lively punctuation fun. Lynn Rowe Reed's bold, bright, and busy childlike illustrations are playful and entertaining. Together, word and art offer a delightful, manic romp that's perfect for story time, or as a help reinforcing grammar lessons. With a straightforward list of rules at the end to complete this manic, fun-filled treasure, Punctuation Takes A Vacation is a delightful crowd pleaser, and kids 6-10 may find that punctuation lessons will never be boring again.
