(Waving a rickety old cane in the air)

In my day, no one spoke in the library – they couldn’t! Libraries were sealed and the oxygen was pumped out, creating a vacuum! And now look what we’ve come to – every picture book seems to end in an exclamation mark. Librarians, all this merriment is going to be the end of us! I ask you, weblog reader – what do you see in common among these books?

Beware – the exclamation mark is on the rise, friends. The tyranny of excitement and fun is upon us. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at what the Google had to say when I ran an Ngram search for “!”:

(click to enlarge)

Previous Ye Olde Scope Notes posts:

The Barcode Goes Here!

Cover Controversy

Is This a Book Order or a Toy Catalog?!

How to Make Books