Cover Image: Don't Dangle Your Participle

Don't Dangle Your Participle

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Member Reviews

Yes! As an educator, I’m delighted to see a book vividly illustrate the grammatical concept of misplaced modifiers. While a number of the revisions could have benefited from more varied construction, for the purposes of demonstrating how easily we can make a switch to please our ear, the book is brilliant. The pictures are memorable and aptly visualize why careful syntax is appreciated. I would use this text even with secondary and collegiate students.

Bonus Elements
1. Proceeds from this book support charity.
2. The book opens and closes with an interactive illustration for you to practice sentence construction.
3. The illustrator, Mike DeSantis, is kind enough to provide a step-by-step guide to his watercolor images.

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Very informative. Even taught me something. The illustrations were awesome! Simple and easy to understand.

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After a two-page lesson defining participles and what it means when they’re left dangling, the rest of the book goes on to literally illustrate how ridiculous dangling participles are. The literal meaning of the dangling participle sentence is illustrated, and then the corrected sentence is given and illustrated.

The first two pages of this seem a bit like a textbook, and they don’t actually give the easiest way to recognize if a participle is dangling (usually the issue is the first noun after the comma – just make sure that noun after the comma is what should be modified by the phrase before the comma). Still their explanation is decent. The rest of the book is all grammar humor at its best. Few things inspire more laughs in the grammar classroom than misplaced modifiers, and the authors thought up some doozies that translate into hilarious illustrations.

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I cannot think of a better way to learn grammar! This book shows how to use participles correctly and is filled with illustrated examples to keep kids interested and make their learning easier.

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Grammar can be so boring when you try to study in school but not in this book.
It is awfully funny in this very book, every page will make you laugh.
And you'll also learn how to use the participle in the right way!
Strongly recommended.

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We LOVED this book, it is so well set out and uses humour and great artwork to engage and teach children (and adults). Participles are quite a complex area and this book explained them, and gave repeated, helpful examples to support children with using our language with more confidence. The funny examples give a clear reason why such things are important which is an area my children certainly struggle with - we enjoyed reading this book together and it has been requested again and again. I even overheard them playing around with the idea of dangling participles over breakfast - thank you Vanita Oelschlager!

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This is the epitome of something that a high school English teacher needs!

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Thanks to Netgalley and respective publisher.
It's quite fascinating and helpful children book about learning participle in meaningful instances and
excellent way.
It would enhance a child to grasp participle in better manner.

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Don't Dangle Your Participle
by Vanita Oelschlager
I love the humor of a difficult concept. I read through the book with a smile plastered on my face. The Definition is great, and how they go to the extreme to explain it makes it even more humorous, I can see using this in front of a class to teach this difficult concept, and having the kiddos giggling uproariously. I reckon it’s a book that every teacher should have in their classroom.

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Not sure what this book is I want to read it so bad but the file won't work =/

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This is my second encounter with Vanita Oelschlager. The first was Ivy in Bloom: The Poetry of Spring from Great Poets and Writers from the Past.

In Don't Dangle Your Participle, Oelschlager uses lovely drawings and funny examples to help children better understand how a verb can be used as an adjective. At the same time, it shows the importance of the word's placement within the sentence.

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This book clearly explains a topic lots of children find difficult. It's well illustrated (in a similar manner to the kids' version of Eats, Shoots and Leaves) and gives kids a great opportunity to see how participle placement can affect the entire meaning of a sentence.

A great book.

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I think that this is an important book. Grammar is one of those nebulous things that kids dislike but showing the implications of improper use of the 'participle' is funny and easily understood. Using humor as the vehicle carrying the message is one that can work.
This author first defines participle and then shows very clear examples of correct and incorrect use of these parts of speech, words formed from a verb and used as an adjective or noun.
Examples, "Eating like a pig my cake was gone in seconds." One can clearly see the cake eating like a pig and then ask the question, who was eating like a pig.
Great fun and educational!

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An informative and colourfully illustrated book for children that makes learning fun.there should be more like this in the future

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I'm so torn on this book. I love the illustrations and the concept, but after the first few examples it just seemed very repetitive and some of the examples were really awkward. Not wrong, which is nice, just... technically right, but not in a way in which people speak or helps children remember. While I will still mention this book to librarians and teachers, it will come with a heavy dose of 'flip through it and see what you think'.

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A good way to help your kiddo learn the proper way to write properly. I love children's book that help children learn important skills. This was definitely one of those books. Definitely recommend for parents trying to help their kiddos learn writing skills. It'll be one we will reread!

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"Don't Dangle Your Participle" by Vanita Oelschlager is clearly an awesome foray into grammar. Presented in a humorous style, a participle is defined as a verb that acts as an adjective. Its job is to modify a noun, however, the participle sometimes loses its way. Often comical in presentation, multiple examples of errant participles are pictorially displayed. My favorite lost participle was: "Melting in the hot sun, Ida rushed to finish her ice cream". What or who was melting in the sun? It certainly was not Ida! The participle finds its way back to the correct noun. "Melting in the hot sun, the ice cream has to be finished quickly by Ida". What was melting? The ice cream!

The text is enhanced by the drawings of illustrator Mike DeSantis. He shows and explains the steps involved in the creation of his whimsical artwork. "Don't Dangle Your Participle" by Vanita Oelschlager is an entertaining grammar lesson suitable for children as well as adults.

Thank you Vanita Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Don't Dangle Your Participle".

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First of all, I could not get a read on the target audience for this book. The pictures and examples were geared for young children, but the explanation for what a dangling participle is seemed more geared towards teens or even adults. As an English major, I didn't feel that the lesson was conveyed in the lesson section, and the reader had a better chance of getting it with the list of examples provided. How a young child should get this is beyond me.

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I want my entire Diploma of Writing & Editing taught like this, thanks.

Months of struggling with verbs, participles, and the like, and it takes what amounts to a children's book to explain it to me. And one with illustrations.

I'm sold. More, please.

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It's tough out there for grammar nerds these days. The internet, Twitter and handheld devices have helped lower the standards of communication and the English language as I learned it. I'm not sure if Mad Libs deserve the credit or blame for my high grammatical standards, but I learned parts of speech before my classmates and I've been a word nerd ever since. I think it's great to teach kids parts of speech at a young age and in a fun way. The illustrations are great and there's nothing better than when kids accidentally learn something while doing something fun.

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