Cleary's Words Are CATegorical series began with A Mink, a Fink, and a Skating Rink: What Is a Noun? (1999) and ran through verbs, prepositions, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms and homophones before cycling back to nouns again. This time the treatment gives more examples of a person, place, or thing and then goes on to include abstract and proper nouns. As before, the definitions are energized by Cleary's often-goofy examples, delivered in romping rhymes and illustrated with verve: Proper nouns / all name specific / people, things, and places. / Like Uncle Lou / or Timbuktu, / they start with upper cases. On every page the daffiness is amplified by the illustrations. Whatever the setting, from Boston to Paris, from castle to barnyard, the wildly colored, cartoonlike drawings have a zany edge. Though the presentation might be slapdash, the information will stick. Recommended as an antidote to snooze-producing grammar texts.

Gr 2-4-This title presents students with yet more rhymed and seemingly random nouns than those in Cleary's A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink: What Is a Noun? (Carolrhoda, 1999). Each spread contains a playful sentence elaborating on the topic, with each noun highlighted in a bright color. "Friend is a noun,/and so is your dad,/ice cream/and bagels/and Boston/and Brad." Gable's loose watercolor cartoons depict each noun (as well as the series's signature big-nosed cats, of course). Unfortunately, Clearly does not use this opportunity to go much beyond the scope of his previous work on this part of speech. A reference to "bling" is fun, though likely to date the book quickly. Those seeking a more thorough picture-book introduction to noun subspecies, such as compound nouns, collective nouns, and plurals, should stick with Ruth Heller's Merry-Go-Round: A Book about Nouns (Grosset & Dunlap, 1992). Lime would be a fun read-aloud for language-arts lessons, but those owning the other titles should consider it an additional purchase.-Jayne Damron, Farmington Community Library, MI Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.