PENNY AND THE PUNCTUATION BEE

Donohue follows up Alfie the Apostrophe (2006), illustrared by JoAnn Adinolfi, with another parade of animate punctuation—featuring this time a Period, a Question Mark and an obnoxious Exclamation Point! Round Penny and her slouching friend Quentin vow to beat bouncy Elsie by creating more sentences correctly in their school’s upcoming bee. One by one other contestants like Collin the Colon are eliminated until, after a hard-fought contest, Penny scores the tiebreaker with an extra-credit statement using not one but two periods: “Mr. Dash is my teacher.” Carping critics may note that under these rules the contest would always be a walkaway for the Comma—but never mind. Wielding broad brushes filled with what looks like poster paint, Law fashions a bright world populated by colorful, easily recognizable punctuation of all sorts. Will young readers enjoy this Period of learning? You bet! For children (or, for that matter, parents) who are still hazy on the uses of the three marks, the author discusses types of sentences in an explanatory afterword. (Picture book. 6-8)