Review_CHILDREN’S
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The Upper Case: Trouble in Capital City
Tara Lazar, illus. by Ross MacDonald. Disney-Hyperion, $17.99
(32p) ISBN 978-1-368027-65-6
In a follow-up to 7 Ate 9, trouble comes to Capital City when
every one of its namesake capital letters—except for Private I—
disappear. Prompted by Question Mark and Exclamation,
Private I immediately tackles the
Upper Case. Punctuated by ample
wordplay (“Hyphen was busy
dashing around town”), Private I
searches the city high and low for
leads, finally spying the missing
caps on a movie theater marquee. A
twist reveals that Exclamation is
“crooked,” having made false promises of cinema fame to the
capital letters in exchange for a little quiet. Peace is restored
and Exclamation “straightened out” with assistance from the
Grammar Police. Though many of the jokes are unlikely to res-
onate with readers at the lower end of the age range, Lazar hits
every mark of a traditional detective story, and MacDonald’s
illustrations place readers on the scene of a Technicolor retro
gumshoe drama. Ages 3–5. (Oct.)The Day Punctuation Came to Town
Kimberlee Gard, illus. by Sandie Sonke. Familius, $16.99 (32p)
ISBN 978-1-641701-45-7
Having moved to Alphabet City, the bright purple
Punctuation family gears up for their first day of school.
Exclamation Point leads the way enthusiastically, while lag-
ging Question Mark considers queries: “Do you think
everyone will be nice?” Comma, who “kept pausing,” lingers
behind them, and period brings “the line to a close.” Their
new classmates, in various hues with simple accessories, are
perplexed by the Punctuation family, but after introductions,
the new friends divert themselves by creating commands,
questions, and short sentences. Comma, feeling unwanted by
the letter strings, sneaks away, leaving the letters in speedy
words (boom, duck, and run) to crash. After realizing that it is
essential to slowing text, Comma promises to “keep things in
order.” Though the explanations can feel repetitious, Gard
and Sonke deliver a punctuation primer disguised by an
upbeat story and plentiful wordplay. Ages 5–8. (Aug.)Nouns Say “What’s That?”
Michael Dahl, illus. by Lauren Lowen. Picture Window, $20.99 (32p)
ISBN 978-1-515838-69-2; $7.95 paper ISBN 978-1-5158-4058-9
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, theypoint 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 educa-
tional tool. A brief yet comprehensive guide to nouns of all
kinds. Ages 5–8. (Aug.)Can U Save the Day?
Shannon Stocker, illus. by Tom Disbury. Sleeping Bear, $16.99
(32p) ISBN 978-1-585364-04-6
Boorish B, the bully of this animalian/abcedarian barnyard,
flaunts to A the consonants’ numerical superiority over their
vowel peers (“There are 5 vowels in your group/ but 21 in our
grand troop” begins Stocker in consistent rhyme). Insulted, A
disappears, changing the animals’ cries from “bark” to “brk,”
“quack” to “quck,” and “croak” to “crok.” Soon E, I, and O take
off, too, leaving the animals tongue-tied (“Mmmmmm?” says
the cow). And the situation worsens when a rogue tractor
threatens to barrel through a field of snoozing consonants. B
and U are quick to notice, but without O, the tractor’s horn
only musters a “hnk.”After U saves the day by making an
unexpected transformation, she sets things to rights around
the farm. Disbury’s expressive ink-and-wash letters add to the
narrative’s playfulness and drama in equal measure. An adven-
turesome lesson in phonetics and friendship. Ages 6–7. (Aug.)Wow Cat’s Adventures with Adjectives
Allison Sutter, illus. by Darya Shchegoleva. CreateSpace, $7.99
(53p) ISBN 978-1-540358-31-8
From “Adorable” to “Zany,” Wow Cat offers a vocabulary of
adjectives—including a definition and an example sentence
for each—to describe his, and others’, adventures around the
world. Taken together, the adjectives suggest that Wow Cat
is one exceedingly well-rounded protagonist, one who has
spoken at the White House (“Eloquent”), attended dental
school (“Knowledgeable”), and thrown a fabulous party after
winning an Oscar (“Lavish”). Though the narrative is disjointed,
skipping from place to place and featuring a variety of other
characters in disconnected, one-off spreads (“Brawny Olympic
champion Lionel Lionheart,” for example), Sutter’s text serves
best as an abecedarian index of elevated descriptors. Shchegoleva’s
artwork, meanwhile, has a luminous quality reminiscent of
animation, with rich colors and varying lighting gradients. A
globe-trotting etymological tool for young linguaphiles. Ages
4–8. (BookLife)Growing Grammarians
Five picture books explore the rules and functions of grammar.