Merry-Go-Round A Book About Nouns
- A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink, What is a Noun?
Merry-Go-Round: A Book About Nouns
by Ruth Heller
A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink, What is a Noun?
by Brian P. Cleary, illustrated by Jenya Prosmitsky
The first line of the book Merry-Go-Round: A Book About Nouns is a full two page spread with a brilliant green dragon that is too beautifully breathtaking to be scary. It is a dramatic introduction to the first sentence, “NOUNS name a person, place or thing, a damsel, a forest, a dragon . . . a king.” The king on the next two page spread is in vivid purple, orange, blue, and gray. Although younger children will enjoy the pictures and poetic language in this book, don’t let the merry-go-round on the cover fool you into thinking this book won’t have quite advanced language rules, because it does. Abstract nouns we cannot see, concrete nouns, common nouns, proper nouns, compound nouns whether hyphenated or not, and collective nouns are all named and illustrated. Singular and plural nouns and exceptions are listed, with spelling rules! Did you know octopuses and/or octopi are both correct? That information is given on the page with bright neon octotpi! If your students or child needs to learn about possessive compound nouns and that determiners appear whenever nouns are near, check out this book.
If you are looking for an easier text that will focus on person, animal, place, and thing while being entertaining, then look for A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink, What is a Noun? This book cover appears to be the more difficult of the two noun books, but it is not. The illustrations are cartoon style, and this book also rhymes. Here is a sample sentence, “Gown is a noun. Crown is a noun. In fact, our whole hometown is a noun.” This is a very fun book to read. For the second reading, stop and ask the children to tell which words were nouns. This book is appropriate for the primary grades.
Here is my FREE PDF on nouns, photos below: Nouns work pages and key and word bank PDF (3 pages)
Happy reading, Carolyn
