Kites Sail High: A Book About Verbs

World of Language

by Ruth Heller

A rhyming guide to verbs and how they are used in English.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Language, Nonfiction, School, Writing, 2nd Grade

48 pages, Paperback

First published February 23, 1988

About the author

Author and illustration with a passionate interest in Korean culture. She lives with her husband in San Francisco, California.

Reviews

[Margaret Boling]

4/13/11 ** This is one of Ruth Heller's stunning series on parts of speech. I read this aloud with my fourth graders to model an inquiry process in which we were learning about the different parts of speech by reading picture books which purported to explain them. As I read this one aloud, I found that the key information was sometimes lost in the convoluted sentence structure employed to facilitate the rhyme. I definitely needed to re-read this book with my students, focusing on the illustrations, rhythm, and big ideas on the first read and then focusing on the ideas related to verbs on subsequent readings. Overall, the process was a hit, with students highly engaged in becoming experts on their assigned part of speech through the reading of several picture books.

[Nancy Kotkin]

Text: 3 stars
Illustrations: 5 stars

A picture book about verbs. Not as strong as the other picture books in Ruth Heller's World of Language series. I found the order of concepts to be confusing. For example, irregular verbs are presented before regular verbs. Some concepts are introduced but not explained thoroughly enough. For instance, tenses are touched on but not defined clearly. Active and passive voice are also mentioned but not differentiated well. Covers imperative, indicative, and subjunctive moods. Very accomplished illustrations.

[Raina]

Beautiful (I should say it again, BEAUTIFUL) illustrations and simple text about lots of different kinds of verbs. This series is imprinted on my brain, as I grew up with a set of the books. I was excited every time Heller released another title.

[Douglas Larson]

This is another in Heller's series of illustrated guides to parts of english speech written for young children. There are about 8 or 9 of these books (one each on nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, interjections, pronouns, collective nouns and more). In each book in the series Heller presents the topic so clearly and so well that everyone, adults and children alike, come away with a solid understanding of the subject. While I did moderately well in english in grade school, junior high and high school, there were various details about some aspects of grammer that I never grasped very well. I wish Heller had written these books back when I was young.

The other astounding and remarkable aspect to this series of books is that Heller also did all of the illustrations herself. I believe that is something of a rarity for an author to create an illustrated book and to do both the text and the illustrations. Heller's command of the art of illustration is as good as her command of the english language.

If you were ever, or perhaps still are, fuzzy about any aspect to parts of english speech, take a look at these books by Heller.

[Dolly]

This is a fun, rhyming book about verbs in the World of Language series by Ruth Heller.

The narrative is fairly short and rhythmic and the illustrations are colorful. It's an interesting way to introduce the concept of verbs, regular and irregular, different cases, and active and passive voice.

The topics are actually a bit more complicated than I thought at first glance and while younger children may appreciate the rhymes and pictures, older children will better understand the meaning. We enjoyed reading this book together.

[Erika Forth]

The PERFECT way to teach about verbs! And such a stunningly illustrated book! I stink at grammar, and had major fear about teaching it, but this made it so simple! Not only simply explained to me, but it is easy to teach.

[Hannah]

Grammar + Pretty Pictures = Perfection. My grandma's copy of Many Luscious Lollipops is probably responsible for my grammar geekery. When one of my professors told me that there were other Ruth Heller books about the mechanics of the English Language, I just about fell over with glee!

[Acton]

I think this book is vaary calming. If you wold like to lern abowt vrbs this is a good book. (Bodhi)

[LeeAnn G]

Read in class to the kids.

[Sandra]

I use this series to as a review at the end of the unit. Love the bright illustrations and vivid language!

[Kristen]

Even I learned stuff from this book. A good find, Auntie M!

[Alana Arlequin]

This is a good book for a lesson on verbs. The verbs are written in a different font, so that the students will be able to recognize them.

[Michael D.]

Another great book by Ruth Heller which exposes emergent readers to the parts of speech known as verbs!! I trully enjoyed this book.

[Becky B]

A superb overview of grammar rules regarding verbs, in rhyming verse augmented with colorful illustrations. Ruth Heller's books make learning grammar much more fun and enjoyable.

[Marci Christensen]

A book about verbs. It was mostly fun, some of it I had to clarify.

[David Clark]

This is a good book to model an inquary for but it is for upper grade levels around 4th grade.

[Heather]

This book is an odd one. It starts out well enough--a picture book describing verbs, but it quickly sails into words far too advanced for a picture book audience.

[Kristie Schmidt]

Great books for teaching literary devices.

[Heidi]

Beautiful, creative, colorful book about VERBS! Even my one year old loves looking at the pictures.

[Cara Noles]

This colorful picture book is tells readers all about verbs. Verbs are something that is being done, and Kites Sail High explains that. Pelicans fly, and fly is the verb. Linking verbs, helping verbs, verb phrases, and irregular/regular verbs are explained in the book.

This book is amazing at explaining verbs! It is very well written with a ton of information about verbs. I enjoyed all of the colorfully vibrant drawings on each page, which made the book fun. I would read the book slowly to take in all of the information and not get confused about verbs. This book will help children understand verbs.

I would read this book in the classroom a few times through, so children can hear the words multiple times. Since their is a lot of information about verbs, I might take this book section by section and explain verbs very carefully. Afterwards it would be fun to do verb games and lessons, for the students to understand better.

[Angie]

Captivating creative illustrations and grammar lessons in verse make this a really fun way to reinforce learning about verbs. At their fifth grade level, this covered everything my children have learned about verbs in such a cool way.

[ConnieLettow]

This book tells how to identify verbs in a storybook style. I love it.

[Amber Orvin]

This book was cute & fun to read and I highly recommend all ages to read it and a great way to learn about Verbs ❗️❤️😊

[Amanda]

Less informational text in this than the noun book.

[Tracy Reed]

This is a great series. When learning verbs, my favorite thing is to take the kids outside and have them take turns doing different verbs and the other ones guess what verb they’re performing.

[Ashlie Buroker]

A good laugh for anyone who enjoys grammer.

[Jessica]

Nice addition to the series.