What would happen if a playful poet had a love child with "Schoolhouse Rock"? This book, that's what. Marjorie Maddox's How Can I Look It Up When I Don't Know How It's Spelled? romps through the spelling and grammar mnemonics you learned as a kid-but this time with delicious poetic wit. Like Richard Wilbur before her, Maddox glories in words found inside other words-a rat in separate, ant in defendant. She also serves up imaginative characters (who'd have guessed the word it's had such attitude?) and indelible turns of phrase (the above-mentioned rat's teeth are "as pointed as before-test pencils"; "Nouns knock you out: a blast of smelling salts. / Prepositions tickle the nostrils."). Whether you're a bad speller or a brilliant one, a grammarphobe or a grammar god, Maddox is the she for your bookshelf. -Melissa Balmain, editor-in-chief of Light and author of Satan Talks to His Therapist
Marjorie Maddox uses a host of inspired mnemonics that take the sting out of the spelling bee while untangling some of the mysteries of our glorious but often unwieldy language. With equal parts wit, passion, and pedagogy, she offers a delightful cast of characters, including. . . a lion who "eats vowels for lunch" and "an ant on the defendant" who "took a wrong/turn on his way to a/ picnic and ended up. . . / on the prosecutor's list." In this collection, we meet Marjorie Maddox in two of her favorite roles: poet and teacher, both of which dovetail seamlessly in this wise, funny, and delightfully effective handbook. . . . Without a doubt, Marjorie Maddox and graphic designer Karen Elias will cast a spell over you on every page. -Gloria Heffernan, author of Peregrinatio: Poems for Antarctica
When I was in kindergarten, I learned about Letter People. Miss S was sneaky, and Mr. T was talkative. Mrs. A loved apples, and Old Man O was opinionated. Letters weren't just puzzle pieces that fit together to make a word. They were alive and had vibrant personalities. Marjorie Maddox reminded me of this most imaginative and adventurous of literary lessons. In these poems, letters pounce. They hoot and screech. E is a gentleman. I is timid. . . . We learn about the mischief that's found in the word "parallel" once students leave the classroom and rush to the playground. Maddox makes sure we'll always take enough of the letter S so that we know how to ask for a second helping of Strawberry Shortcake and not be confused for wanting to go to the Sahara instead. And she'll make you feel sorry for "it's"-and consider the accessories we wear to remember the days when we, too, were once more. Maddox doesn't just give us the rules of letters and words, she shows us what letters can do-and what we can do with letters. -Callie Feyen, author of The Teacher Diaries: Romeo & Juliet and Twirl