The girl’s like spaghetti by Lynne Truss
Allen
and Unwin, 2007
(all ages) Illustrated by Bonnie Timmons
Aimed squarely at the teacher market, where people like me are easily
infuriated by the misuse of the apostrophe and carry around a white out
pencil and a rubber to correct those signs seen everyday at the
supermarket or outside a shop, this book is hilarious. Many teachers
and parents around the place will understand the jokes on each page as Lynne
Truss points out the idiocy of the incorrectly used apostrophe.
Using it in the classroom will involve a certain amount of patience, I
feel, as many students are blissfully unaware of their incorrect use of
any grammatical form let alone commas, full stops and apostrophes. But
I rant. Here is the perfect book to catch those children unaware, and
teach them through humour, the correct way to write sentences which
require an apostrophe.
Each double page spread elucidates a sentence, one with the correct use
of the apostrophe and one with its being used incorrectly. So we have
one page with children in a playground, the sentence reading The giant
kids' playground (meaning an enormous playground for kids) whereas when
the apostrophe is used incorrectly, the caption reads, The giant kid's
playground (meaning a playground for the exclusive use of the giant kid)
What a world of difference!!
A teacher could have enormous fun with their class, explaining the
double page spreads, and also collecting with their class incorrect
usages that are seen everyday. A lot of fun is in store.
Fran Knight
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