A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink: What Is a Noun? »

Brian P. Cleary is the creator of the best-selling Words Are CATegorical™ series, now a 13-volume set with more than 2 million copies in print. He is also the author of the Math Is CATegorical™ series and the single titles Rainbow Soup: Adventures in Poetry, Rhyme and PUNishment: Adventures in Wordplay, Eight Wild Nights: A Family Hanukkah Tale, Peanut Butter and Jellyfishes: A Very Silly Alphabet Book and The Laugh Stand: Adventures in Humor. Mr. Cleary lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

JJenya Prosmitsky was born in Leningrad and grew up in Kishinev in the former U.S.S.R. She studied at Schusev Children's Art School and later at Repin College of Arts. After coming to the U.S., she graduated with a B.S. in Graphic Design from the University of Minnesota. She is the illustrator of A Mink, A Fink, A Skating Rink: What is a Noun?, Hairy, Scary, Ordinary, and To Root, To Toot, To Parachute (Lerner) and The Wedding That Saved a Town. She lives in Boston.

Offering a lighthearted look at language, this book shows, rather than explains, the concept of nouns. Young readers are introduced to basic word groups through rhyming verse and illustrations of comical cartoon cats. Brimming with lively examples, this book proves that it's fun to learn grammar! Nouns are printed in color for easy identification, and the playful rhymes and illustrations combine to bring key words into focus. A word-search game at the end encourages readers to apply what they ve learned.

Publishers Weekly

While this book may appear to be little more than a list of nouns, the witty zeal it brings to the task of enumeration makes this basic concept seem like plenty. Cleary indulges his fondness for wordplay (evident from such previous titles as Give Me Bach My Schubert) in the humorous, wide-ranging subjects that show up in the text, its cadences reminiscent of jump-rope songs: "If it's a train, or brain, or frown,/ It's elementary--it's a noun"; "London, Levis, Pekinese--/ Proper nouns name all of these." Colored type highlights the nouns within the verse, which winds around the pictures in a bouncy typeface. For her first children's book, Prosmitsky introduces a cast of goofy-looking cartoon cats with round bodies and giant, flaccid noses. The challenge of illustrating such a random list results in gleeful, nearly nonsensical scenes: the two images for the lines "The pope, some soap that's on a rope,/ A downtown mall, a downhill slope" show a small black cat, rigid with fear, getting soaped up beside a portrait of the pope on the shower wall juxtaposed with a snowscape of cats and their bags sliding down a slope after shopping. Certainly one of the least serious grammar lessons imaginable, this book will convince kids that nouns are everywhere. Ages 7-9. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.