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Summary
Summary
Language play iincludes many punctuation marks in this companion to the New York Times #1 bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves !
Commas and apostrophes aren't the only punctuation marks that can cause big trouble if they're put in the wrong place.
"Twenty-odd ducks" is an estimate of how many are waddling by, but "twenty odd ducks" would not only be a big group, but they'd look very strange! Imagine this without the middle period and the comma: "The king walked and talked. A half hour after, his head was cut off." Oh no--a beheaded king that can still walk and talk!
Truss and Timmons put hyphens, parentheses, quotation marks, periods, and more in the spotlight, with silly scenes showing how which marks you choose and where you put them can cause hilarious mix-ups.
Author Notes
Lynne Truss was born on May 31, 1955, in Kingston upon Thames, England. She is an English writer and journalist. Her book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation was a best-seller in 2003.
Truss received a first-class honors degree in English Language and Literature from University College London in 1977. After graduation, she worked for the Radio Times as a sub-editor before moving to the Times Higher Education Supplement as the deputy literary editor in 1978. From 1986 to 1990, she was the literary editor of The Listener and was an arts and books reviewer for The Independent on Sunday before joining The Times in 1991. She currently reviews books for The Sunday Times. She has also written numerous books including Tennyson's Gift; Going Loco; Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation; and Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (1)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-This follow-up to Eats, Shoots and Leaves (about the importance of commas) (2006) and The Girl's Like Spaghetti (about apostrophes) (2007, both Putnam) emphasizes the importance of punctuation in general. Truss again makes the case that careless application can dramatically change one's meaning. To prove her point, she provides contrasting examples of the same sentence, punctuated in different ways. Timmons's charming watercolors make the change in meaning clearer. In one example, a child gazes at a tower of presents obscuring a Christmas tree, and Truss writes, "'Do you know who came last night? Santa Claus,' said my mom." On the facing page, Santa addresses his elves-"'Do you know who came last night?' Santa Claus said. 'My mom.'" (Needless to say, no pile of presents accompanies the arrival of Santa's mom.) In each example, the pertinent punctuation marks are printed in red. An afterword provides additional explanation for each pair of examples. The references to royalty and Christian tradition point to the book's British origin, but Truss's examples should still be clear to North American students. Twenty-Odd Ducks will be most effective through guided reading in small groups, though savvy children may enjoy it as an amusing pleasure read.-Jayne Damron, Farmington Community Library, MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
