Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really DO Make a Difference!

by Lynne Truss

Young and young-at-heart sticklers, unite! Lynne Truss and illustrator Bonnie Timmons provide hilarious proof that punctuation really does matter.

Illuminating the comical confusion the lowly comma can cause, this new edition of Eats, Shoots & Leaves uses lively, subversive illustrations to show how misplacing or leaving out a comma can change the meaning of a sentence completely.

This picture book is sure to elicit gales of laughter—and better punctuation—from all who read it.

Genres: Picture Books, Nonfiction, Writing, Childrens, Humor, Education, Language

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Lynne Truss is a writer and journalist who started out as a literary editor with a blue pencil and then got sidetracked. The author of three novels and numerous radio comedy dramas, she spent six years as the television critic of The Times of London, followed by four (rather peculiar) years as a sports columnist for the same newspaper. She won Columnist of the Year for her work for Women's Journal. Lynne Truss also hosted Cutting a Dash, a popular BBC Radio 4 series about punctuation. She now reviews books for the Sunday Times of London and is a familiar voice on BBC Radio 4. She lives in Brighton, England.

Reviews

[kwesi 章英狮 · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if one day when you wake up, God disintegrate all the commas in the world even erase it inside the mind of all the people living inside this small spherical world called Earth, and God only give you one copy of Lynne Truss’ book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves to survive. Can you help the commas survive or you will be one of those people who are planning to dominate the world by commas? Be one of us, be the Comma Fighters.

It is very hard to accept that commas are one of the most used and most easily misplaced punctuation marks ever invented in grammar. Every comma really do make a difference! Swear, I’m not joking. Imagine this situation, when you woke up you heard your husband asking you “What is this thing called honey?” While pointing to a stuff comma and you imagine him asking about honey because without comma, the word honey is the object of called.

Such a shame that everything will turn into hell when everyone talking straight without commas. This simple and very child-loving picture book of grammar is a very useful tool for everyone to learn. No age limit and even kids will enjoy the funny upside down scenes when you saw your grandma jumping with you and your friends or you ask a very large, hot dog in summer because of your comma carelessness.

In this book, Truss, show cases this book to children to teach them basic comma usage in a very carefree way. No need to read a whole chapter of comma in your English textbook or ask your scary old teacher on how to use it. This tool is a very good supplement for kids and teachers who have hard time learning in a very boring atmosphere, especially me. To survive, we have to use comma or else people will kill you indirectly by throwing wrong manipulated sentences.

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Last time I posted about the reading sutra in which both readers (girl and boy) have to do some basic position to enjoy reading with partners. Now, the commas have to enjoy it too in a very full blast and making grammar sexy! Yummy! Don't mistook this with coma patients.

Review posted on Old-Fashioned Reader .

Rating: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference! by Lynne Truss and Bonnie Timmons (Illustrator), 4 Sweets

Challenges:
Book #207 for 2011
Book #21 for Read to Me - Picture Book Challenge

[Kelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute read that illustrates (literally) how moving a comma just one word away from its appropriate place will drastically change the meaning of the entire sentence. Simple, colorful cartoons make these examples shine. Some are quite comical.

[Debbie W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a fun book to teach comma usage!

[Nathan Meier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty fun perspectives on language!

[Lara's · Rating 4 out of 5]

Synopsis : You might want to eat a huge hotdog, but a huge, hot dog would run away pretty quickly if you tried to take a bite out of him. Just look inside to see how forgetting to include a comma or placing one in the wrong spot can completely change the meaning of a sentence--with hilarious consequences.
Review : I wish I had had this book when I was in 4th grade (I wish I had had this book when I was in 12th grade). But, I'll tell you what, I'm glad I found it now. It's really a wonderful resource for ol' e.e. cummings lovers like myself who just kind of gave up on punctuation ohhh...somewhere between 4th-12th grade. I'm not going to say that it's all sunk in quite yet. But, I'm using commas more often now and with a bit more confidence than before. Lynne Truss has taken on the most amazing task of making the somewhat "dry" (i.e boring) topic of punctuation and created something of a modern entertainment--- all while making us learn somethin'. That is an admirable talent! Having said that, this book does seem to require a bit of explanation for the younger set. You could spend a good 3-5 minutes on each page reading it aloud and emphasizing the differentiation in meanings of the same sentence depending on where the comma was placed. There is a big difference in the sentence "Eat here, and get gas" as opposed to "Eat here and get gas." Do you know what they are? If not, it's perfectly alright--however, you might want to read this book.
Critical Reviews :From School Library Journal, "
While a title on grammar may need hand selling, both read-aloud audiences and independent readers will discover the potent possibilities of punctuation." From Booklist, "children will find themselves gaining an instinctive understanding of the "traffic signals of language."

[Tanu Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some uses of the comma that this little book explained better than anywhere else on the Internet!:-)

[Maxine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love English, especially its flexibility. Maybe because it has roots in so many different languages (Latin, German, French, and early Brit and Celt just to mention a few), it always seems to be able to absorb any word without it looking silly or jarring to the eye or ear. If you have ever seen a French sentence using a word like Coca-Cola, you'll know what I mean.

However, I don't have the same love of punctuation. I have a tendency to throw in commas willy-nilly, hoping they're in the right place, and don't get me started about semi-colons and colons; I'm sure they were invented just to plague punctuation illiterates like me (ha, I threw one in for fun and I have no idea whether it belongs, nor, to be honest, do I care much). In fact, I always sort of felt that punctuation should be allowed the same freedom as English, to roam free, to dance and sing where ever it wants on a page.

But to author Lynne Truss, I am a punctuation Barbarian and should be buried under a pile of misused apostrophes (my suggestion, not hers). And as much as I still don't share her passion for punctuation, I really enjoyed this little book. She gives lots of entertaining examples of the problems caused by a misplaced comma or an overuse of exclamation points and, after giving it a bit of thought, I can see her point. I love to read but I had never really considered an author's use of colons or apostrophes but now I wonder, would I love Jane Austen as much if her sentences lacked periods? Would Charles Dickens be as much fun to read if he didn't bother with properly placed commas? Would John Steinbeck's works flow so beautifully if he threw in exclamation points at odd places?

I doubt I'll ever fully appreciate the difference between a colon and a semi-colon and I suspect I will still put commas where they don't belong and I definitely will not carry a black marker with me to correct signs which are improperly punctuated. But Truss has given me a new appreciation of the importance of these formerly (by me) under appreciated little dots and dashes and I promise I will try to do better by them in the future.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yes, children will understand this. They don't need the grammar explanation in the back, and they don't need to read it as a companion to the adult version. The pictures show the difference quite clearly. And memorably. I would buy this for classrooms of children aged 8-12 for sure, and encourage everyone else to read it from their libraries.

I also think it would be fun for a class of students to make up their own pairs of sentences and to illustrate the two versions themselves. A child who has done that will never forget to be careful of commas, and therefore will communicate more clearly.

I do give it only three stars, not four, because I do have some quibbles. For example: "Becky teased the boy with the fluffy duck" sounds to me just like "Becky teased the boy, with the fluffy duck." If I were writing a story about Becky and that boy, I wouldn't use *either* sentence, but would reconstruct the scene to make it clear which person had the duck in the first place.

I highly recommend you spend three minutes reading this, if you're at all interested.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny.

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cartoon look at comma usage and how its misuse can make a sentence completely change and go awry. It's a funny companion, appropriate for children, to the author's similarly titled book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. We've enjoyed both books. Although our girls can't truly appreciate the nuances yet, they still enjoyed the cartoon pictures.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever, well-designed book to introduce the purpose of commas in sentence. It gives some fun sentence examples of comma placement and also a grammatical explanation of the parts of the sentence (objects, nouns, dependent clauses, etc.) This is probably for older children.

[Harold Ogle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another collection of alternating uses of punctuation that demonstrate how the same sentence is modified for hilarious results, in this case depending on where you put a comma. This has all the strengths of "Girl's Like Spaghetti," except perhaps that the apostrophe is more egregiously misused. Certainly I see fewer awful errors with commas than I see with apostrophes.

But the book is great, and also has the two-page summary of the contents of the book, which would work nicely as a poster for a classroom or office break area. My favorite example of a "comma mistake?"

"What is this thing called honey?" As a science fiction fan, I am particularly tickled by this, as it hearkens back to all the 50s sci-fi movies wherein a computer or logical alien is defeated by its own befuddlement at emotion: "What is this thing called love? DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE!"

Reading something like this, so obvious and so simple, delights me and at the same time inspires envy. How many of us could have written just such a book, I wonder. The idea is brilliant, and perhaps even more obvious than the original Eats, Shoots and Leaves: of course this sort of thing should be written for children! Those are the people most likely to actually benefit from such instruction! So I wish I'd had this "obvious" insight and written something like it myself.

Rather than get bitter, I am choosing to think instead of how many other opportunities there are to provide similar instruction in a children's book. I could easily write a book on "led" vs. "lead," for instance. Every time someone uses "lead" as a past-tense verb ("That was back when I lead the group"), I grit my teeth. For a long time, I thought it was just limited to people who'd learned English after a first language, as I saw this error committed again and again by people born overseas. Sadly, it's pretty common for native English speakers, too...it's almost ubiquitous here on goodreads, as well. Instead of getting depressed at the state of English, I should have fun with it! I'll write my own book, and the process will be fun though nothing will come of it. I'll keep you posted.

[Linda (NOT RECEIVING NOTIFICATIONS) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. A self-confessed comma momma, I get carried away using this form of punctuation sometimes. Oops, there I go again!

It was part of the juvenile fiction at our local library but mentally-challenged adults (like me!) can benefit from this book, too. It is easy to read and understand. Ms. Truss takes the same phrase or sentence and uses a comma with one and shows it without one on the second page. A picture is included to show you what a difference it makes. Lastly, there are two pages at the end that go over everything again; it could be used as a test to reinforce what was just learned.

Naturally, it is a great help with kids. Teens would benefit from it and most adults could learn a thing or two. This includes authors, book reviewers, sign-makers, educators and so on.

On a side note: I, for one, have a problem when I purchase a book or ebook and find it lacks the correct punctuation. First, I paid for that item, and I want it to be properly edited. And like this book shows, using the correct symbols changes the thought process. It simplifies the idea the author is trying to get across. Or not.

I am also the first person to tell you that I make mistakes when I write a review. But I try my best to relay to a potential reader why I liked or didn't like a book. I have purposely not changed my early reviews so I can see for myself that I have improved. Or not. This is a little gem that more people need to read. I am proof that you can always learn something new.

[Jake Wavra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a hilarious book that gives examples of how the placement of commas can totally change the meaning of a sentence. The illustrations are really funny as well, which help students visualize the drastic effects of misplacing a comma or not using it correctly. Another great feature of this book is a section in the back that explains the grammatical difference between each of the examples, providing excellent instructional opportunities.

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the importance of commas. Their placement can change the meaning of sentences, some with very funny results.

[Emily Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a good book to show the power of commas, I can’t believe I’ve only just found this book. I’m very excited to use this with my year 5s and am especially grateful that at the back they also explain each use of commas which helps me if i’m struggling to understand one.

[Jessica Mocha]

This book is a great way to talk about punctuation, commas specifically. Most middle school students have no idea when or where to use commas and that causes a problem when it comes to their writing. Commas change the whole meaning of a phrase. The famous example is "Let's eat Grandma" and "Let's eat, Grandma". One phrase is promoting cannibalism and one is telling the Grandma to eat. Students need practice with placing commas where they need to do. As a teacher, you can present one or two of these sentences everyday on an entrance/exit ticket so students can practice, and it's a form of assessment to see where your students actually are. Students can also make up their own sentences where a comma changes the entire meaning of the sentence. At the end of the unit the teacher uses this for, students can write a short paper about someone in their life that has changed them, and they will be assessed on the punctuation, specifically commas.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed this version with my Comp II students in class today. A few light bulbs clicked on as we discussed the differences between the phrases on each spread. The visualizing really helped them.

[Ryner Nash]

"Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference!" is a children's book delving into the world of commas in a pun filled and insightful way. The pages facing each other are made up of the same words, but with commas placed in different spaces. The illustrations match the sentence's true meaning. For example, one sentence would read: "Slow, children walking", while the other read, "Slow children walking." One is clearly depicting a cross walk with students walking across while the other is children moving at a slow pace while walking. This book can show students the power punctuation and grammar has on perspective. Everything you say and write shapes how people perceive you and punctuation has the power to completely alter other's perception of you.
After reading this text to students, I would have them create their own sentences modeled after the ones in "Eats, Shoots & Leaves." We, as a class, will unpack the qualities that allow the sentences to work both with and without the commas and create a master list for students to work off of. Students will write five sentences and select their best one to send to the editor of "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" as their authentic writing audience.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contained a dozen or so examples of how things can go wrong if you put your commas in the wrong place, or omit them entirely, with humorous results. I admit it was pretty clever, and they managed to find a lot of variations on this theme, but it was much, much shorter than I imagined, which kind of raises the question of whether this idea should have been turned into a book at all. I noticed that it also comes as a wall calendar, which might make more sense. Still I enjoyed what there was of it, and it was done well. So let's just call it 3 stars.

As an aside, I noticed that the illustrator tried to give some racial diversity to the book, which I applaud their intent, but the actual effect seemed a bit biased: whenever one person or a small group of people was the focus of the text, they were always "white", while characters with any shading were always background, supporting characters. Enough repetitions of this, and it started to detract from the content for me at least.

[Woody Calhoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me get this out of the way as soon as possible, this book has absolutely zero story, but that's a GOOD thing. When I read this book in class, I knew I wouldn't be expecting some grand, epic journey, instead I looked at what the book was, a teaching and reference guide, and judged it by that. And you know what? It's pretty good.

The book uses a lot of creative art to illustrate for kids how misplaced commas can affect the meaning of an entire sentence. The art may not be colored, but it is fun and live it enough to keep kids interest and paying attention, forcing them to reread and learn the rules of commas so that they understand why each picture depicts something completely different. Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a fantastic teaching tool for helping kids with commas and I would recommend it for any classroom.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a homeschooler I love educational yet engaging picture books. My 2nd grader is not a kid who takes well to formal lessons or having his work corrected, and he is just starting to do some creative writing of his own accord, so I don't want to ruin it by correcting his work. This book had him laughing hysterically and he totally understood how the comma placement changed the meanings. The author has two other similar books called The Girl's Like Spaghetti and Twenty-Odd Ducks.

[Woodrós · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book can provoke some giggles, thanks to Bonnie Timmons' lovely illustrations. The opposing pages feature two differently-punctuated versions of the same sentence, with vivid differences in how the scene is illustrated from the addition or subtraction of a single comma.

It's basically a book attempting to continue the whole: "Let's eat, Grandma!" versus "Let's eat Grandma...." approach to pointing out the importance of punctuation with humor.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was fun, in a nerdy, pedantic kind of way. I teach English and do a lot of proofreading as well so grammar is very important to me - but I don't feel as militant as the author about it. Fun but no more than that.

[Jaclyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought that this book was hilarious! It brought back great memories of when I first read it in elementary! I honestly laughed out loud and certain parts! This was a very clever write and I enjoyed it all the way through!

[Joanne Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good concept. Not sure how well-received this will be with the younger set. WIs it understandable to them? The first half-dozen comics, yes, but the rest? I appreciated the index in the back explaining the grammatical reasons for the sentence meanings.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I dont' remember it too well but love grammatical rants. The rutles are being flaunted everywhere especially in the media and on line.

[Lee Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

What's not to love about this book?!?

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a hoot and nicely illustrated. The best part was at the end when they explained grammatically what was happening in the sentences with and without commas.

[Allison Hawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may be a book meant for kids, but I know a lot of adults who could use it too. Very cute!