WORDS WORDS WORDS

Sixty some odd rhymes, mostly short, many devoted to driving home the wandering rules of English grammar. Teachers of the intermediate grades, faced with the frustration of drilling this coded illogic have always grabbed at mnemonic aids, visual gimmicks, chants, etc. In Words Words Words, they will find some carefully constructed props and prods to memory with built-in examples of syntax, punctuation, and spelling. The book hasn't the Nash-ian humor of the Hymes' Oodles of Noodles (1964, p. 958-J306) but it does have a range of style and a quiet humor all its own. Some of the poems that limn the beauty and magic and pleasure of words are as good as any that Mrs. O'Neill provided for Hailstones and Halibut Bones.