Rhyme & PUNishment

by Brian P. Cleary

Ready to laugh until you're horse ? Brian P. Cleary, author of the best-selling Words Are CATegorical(tm) series and the poetry collection Rainbow Soup, is off on a gnu hilarious adventure in language--PUNS! This imaginative collection of silly and sophisticated puns uncovers double meanings that are kind dove hiding in everyday phrases. A helpful pun-unciation guide is included on porpoise to help ewe give it a try!

Genres: Poetry, Picture Books, Nonfiction, Humor, Childrens

Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Bethany Witemeyer]

3.5/5

This was a cute little book full of fairly decent puns. I enjoyed it.

That being said, this book was shelved in the juvenile section of my library, and some of these puns would go WAY over a kid's head. Not sure if that's the fault of the book marketing or the library, but it's also not really a knock on the book itself.

[Stephanie Carter]

I love good puns, and this book was full of them! It looks like a children’s book, but I would probably use it with ages 10 and up so they actually get the puns. I feel like this book goes well with the game Mad Gab. Very clever, fun, and punny!

[Kate Garcia]

What a fun little read. It helps to read them out loud with your readers. Some were funny, others were just fun.

[Jessica]

This is the best children's book I've read yet this year and a gnu favorite! My husband and I were cracking up! Great book for kids and adults alike!

[jodi niceley]

Fun, fun, fun!

[Nancy Kotkin]

Text: 4 stars
Illustrations: 3 stars

Entertaining introduction to puns. A brief explanation of puns, followed by many examples, all used within rhyming poems. The book is divided into four topical sections, which are color-coded: Music (blue), Animals (green), Food (orange), and Geography (purple). Words that children are most likely not familiar with are defined at the bottom of the page on which they appear. Kids will relate to the subject matter of the poems, many of which are humorous. Cartoonish illustrations.

[Heidi-Marie]

While I found the intelligent humor, my brain now hurts a little. Too many puns at once. And had me thinking a little on Mad Gab. I'm quite impressed with the talent that put this book together. I'm a little dubious about a couple of the poems that were created. An interesting book that does well in not only teaching puns, but also explains a lot of possibly new vocabulary to children. It won't work for the idea I had with K-5 storytime, but it still works for anyone wanting a punny book.

[Lauren Owens]

Playing with words becomes a great past time as children get older. They see words so often in textbooks that to see them used in a funny and exciting way. This book made me laugh just reading through the pages. Brian truly has a gift for wordplay, puns and rhyming. This would be a great book to have available for the students to read through and try to mimic on their own.
Recommended grade level: 4-5

[Kaden]

It was funny.

[Madison]

I loved the variety of puns provided by this book.

[Lisa]

Puns, puns, everywhere...and a chuckle or two for the kids. Some of these read like groan-worthy dad jokes, but I imagine this is a neat book for kids just learning such concepts as double meanings, homophones, etc. Each poem has the target words bolded, and these words are featured on the bottom of the page to clarify meaning or perhaps why they're grouped together in the poem. There's also a geography section, followed by a map covering the countries mentioned. Might be better as a pun-a-day book, where you read one at breakfast or at bedtime, rather than reading straight through.