Shrek? Earwax-flavored jelly beans? Poems about meatballs? Who on earth would use all these to explain the rules of grammar? Must be Patricia T. O'Conner! Just like Woe Is I , her national bestseller for adults, the junior version uses conversational language and witty, entertaining examples to show how fun and easy it can be to use good English. It's a humorous reference book you'll actually enjoy pulling off the shelf. Like a humorous Strunk and White for 4th through 8th graders, this is destined to become a must-have for every English classroom and student.   Grade 4–8—O'Conner has produced a grammar guide for children using the witty, lighthearted style that made Woe Is I (Putnam, 1996) so popular. She covers pronouns, plurals, possessives, verb usage, subject-verb agreement, capitalization, and punctuation with jargon-free explanations and entertaining examples (Shrek, Count Olaf, Garfield, and Harry Potter all put in appearances). Additional chapters on commonly confused and misspelled words, clichés, and instant messaging and e-mails make this a well-rounded and useful guide to grammar in the 21st century. The scattered comic-strip-style illustrations neither add to nor detract from its value. Handbooks that are as instructive as they are entertaining are few and far between, making this a first purchase for most libraries.— Amanda Raklovits, Champaign Public Library, IL Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "In this entertaining treasure, O'Conner's blithe banter will attract young readers, and her irreverent delivery will retain them. . . . This fun resource will prove invaluable." -- VOYA (starred review) "O'Conner's examples, funny little verses, and rules [plus] Stiglich's expressive cartoons are guaranteed to snag the attention of the most ungrammatical little culprit." -- The Chicago Sun-Times "Handbooks that are as instructive as they are entertaining are few and far between, making this a first purchase for most libraries." -- School Library Journal Patricia T. O'Conner, a former editor at the New York Times Book Review , has written for many magazines and newspapers. She is the author of two other books on language and writing, Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know About Writing and You Send Me: Getting It Right When You Write Online .