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amotisse's review against another edition
3.0
Following on from the word spy, the investigation continues into the history of words, languages and grammar, how we use and abuse language and fun writing facts, codes to crack and social history surrounding these wonderful elements that we use, without thinking much about it, everyday.
sean67's review against another edition
5.0
Second volume in this non-fiction language study for younger readers, but can be accessed by all ages is again readable, and engaging and has great exercises and interesting information. The style is great, and the substance is great. Dubosarsky is a real talent in both fiction and non-fiction writing.
treereader's review against another edition
3.0
Another linguistics book. (That's a good thing, ok?)
It was written in a conversational tone. The one that adults use for eight year olds. I find it really annoying when adults write like this (with hundreds of bracketed asides like this!) as it feels like the lower the intelligence of a kid. I might not have noticed that when I was seven. But it feels really demeaning.
Ok, there were really good facts about English, most of which I already knew from other books, but many would have been completely knew to me four years ago when I hadn't really read many linguistics books.
Trouble is, it was written for kids who didn't know anything about English at all! I mean, there'd be a fact and then a 'but of course you already know that' but in other places there were more interesting facts that didn't say that! The tone was just a little too patronising for me. And really, I don't need some of the clues given in the book - at the end of each chapter was a little code for a sentence that I had to crack. And there was a clue for each code. (The codes related to what the previous chapter covered.) Trouble was, sometimes the clues were completely unnecessary! Or there was a clue to a really really simple 'code' such as gnitirw yreve drow sdrawkcab.
Well after all that moaning I still have to say that it was a nice book and had included a lot of interesting things about the English Language (and lots of other languages) into an hour long read. So go give it to your seven year old kid who's only addicted to TV, or hates English or something. I did like it despite the patronisation.
It was written in a conversational tone. The one that adults use for eight year olds. I find it really annoying when adults write like this (with hundreds of bracketed asides like this!) as it feels like the lower the intelligence of a kid. I might not have noticed that when I was seven. But it feels really demeaning.
Ok, there were really good facts about English, most of which I already knew from other books, but many would have been completely knew to me four years ago when I hadn't really read many linguistics books.
Trouble is, it was written for kids who didn't know anything about English at all! I mean, there'd be a fact and then a 'but of course you already know that' but in other places there were more interesting facts that didn't say that! The tone was just a little too patronising for me. And really, I don't need some of the clues given in the book - at the end of each chapter was a little code for a sentence that I had to crack. And there was a clue for each code. (The codes related to what the previous chapter covered.) Trouble was, sometimes the clues were completely unnecessary! Or there was a clue to a really really simple 'code' such as gnitirw yreve drow sdrawkcab.
Well after all that moaning I still have to say that it was a nice book and had included a lot of interesting things about the English Language (and lots of other languages) into an hour long read. So go give it to your seven year old kid who's only addicted to TV, or hates English or something. I did like it despite the patronisation.
orin's review against another edition
4.0
Fun intro to several topics in English. Slanted at an angle for children, and with many tedious and groan-worthy jokes, but held my interest and I learned many new things! Oh, the delight of words.
emlinthegremlin's review against another edition
3.0
While I did not enjoy this book as much as the first one, it was still an enjoyable read. It was a little painful to read in the childish tone that it is written in, but I remember loving it as a kid. It really goes through the basics, but who knows, maybe it'll teach you something you didn't know :)
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