Semicolons, Cupcakes, and Cucumbers

K-Gr 2—Period, Question Mark, Exclamation Point, and Comma are four friends with very different interests who are searching for a plan that will please them all. Period wants to read a book. Question Mark likes butterflies; Exclamation Point only wants to do loud, exciting things; and Comma is preoccupied with food. Readers follow along as they try several activities, until a new friend shows them how to combine all their ideas into a perfect plan. A useful teaching tool, the book explains the meaning of different punctuation marks and provides many examples of their use. The characters and their speech bubbles each have their own color and speak in sentences that contain their own type of punctuation. Their faces convey a wealth of emotion and several well-placed details add elements of discovery to the reading. Unfortunately, the grayscale line drawings are rather spare, and on several spreads the perspective is slightly off, with the Semicolon lurking in the distance seeming to be smaller than it should be, or with parts of it hidden behind trees that are actually in the background.