The Case of the Incapacitated Capitals

Pulver (Punctuation Takes a Vacation, et al.) is back with another lively, colorful story. This time the capital letters are struggling. Texting has made Mr. Wright's students lazy; the capital letters have become weakened through neglect. Droll commentary from the letters keeps the book from becoming simply a grammar tract. Childlike acrylic illustrations, with eyeballs on each letter, keep the tone light.

Pulver (Punctuation Takes a Vacation, rev. 5/03; et al.) is back with another lively, colorful story of punctuation and grammar. This time it’s the capital letters that are struggling. Mr. Wright’s students seem to have forgotten about using them, and the capital letters have become weakened through neglect. (In their own speech-bubble words, they are “out of oomph! Zapped! Goners! Incapacitated!”) The students’ texting has made them lazy; even in a letter to the principal, they don’t use capital letters. It takes a while for the students to see their teacher’s point, but, once they do, they re-energize the uppercase letters and all is Wright (er, right) with the world and the classroom. Pulver manages to insert the rules of capitalization into the story a number of times, making this an especially useful book for teachers whose children have become lax in their writing. Droll commentary from the letters themselves (the letter M quips, “Without me, May wouldn’t be a month”) keeps the book from becoming simply a grammar tract. Childlike acrylic illustrations, with eyeballs on each letter (which resemble the magnetic ones kids stick onto refrigerators), keep the tone light and airy, and an informative author’s note about why capital letters are also called uppercase letters will certainly be a surprise to the average elementary school student. A capital idea! robin l. smith