A short little alphabet book found in the comedy section of my local bookstore. It provided a few LOLs as I waited for a friend …
K is for Knight. The noble knight’s knife nicked the knave’s knee.
… though, the silliness started to wear off around the letter “N”.
Things I liked:
The Pronunciation Guide. Mucho appreciated. Some of these words are really tricky.
The Illustrations. They’re hilarious, garish, cartoon-ish, and 95% random … and they work brilliantly.
Things I disliked:
Select Word Choices … namely, the inclusion of foreign words like “djibouti” and “oui”. Different phonetic rules does not make something the WORST word.
The Lack of Historical Information. OK. Raj Haldar (an American rapper, composer, and producer) is not an English language scholar … but a book like this really deserves some explanation as to how and why our language developed. A humourous page or two would have been hugely appreciated.
For the record: English is really weird. If you want to know more about its development, I’d recommend David Crystal’s The Stories of English.
The Details:
- The Book: P is for Pterodactyl by Raj Haldar
- Published: 2018, Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
- My Copy: via my local bookstore
- Read date: May 2, 2019
- Rating: ★★☆☆☆
- You should read this if you like … words!
- Avoid this if you … are a beginner-level reader
The Geeky Jock 