THE GIRL’S LIKE SPAGHETTI

Truss follows up her hilarious guide to comma placement with a sequel focusing on the trickier concept of apostrophes. She begins with a two-page introduction explaining the use of the apostrophe in possessives, contractions and in the challenging choice of “its” vs. “it’s.” Each consecutive spread follows the simple but clever layout used in the preceding volume, using a minimum of text with large, appealing illustrations in Timmons’s distinctive, understated style. The left-hand page shows a simple sentence or phrase without the use of the apostrophe, while the facing page adds an apostrophe that changes the meaning. For example, in “the dogs like my dad,” several dogs cavort around a man with wild hair and a beard. In “the dog’s like my dad,” the hairy man is walking just one dog with similar red hair. Some sentence pairs are whimsical while others are laugh-out-loud funny, but the entire text is easy to understand through the charming watercolor-and-ink illustrations. The final spread shows each of the previous pages in miniature with short explanations of the grammatical terms and issues. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-10)