Punished!

Well it's no [b:The Phantom Tollbooth|378|The Phantom Tollbooth|Norton Juster|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1438887022s/378.jpg|1782584] but it's pretty darn fun. Can you collect 7 oxymorons, 7 palindromes, and 7 anagrams in 3 days? I like the math-focused companion to this, too, and wish there were more.

I'm not much for juvie lit, but Miriam brought this to me and said, "you HAVE to read this!" I'm thinking it was really her dad she was thinking about because this books has a lot of puns in it (hence the title--PUNished.) It's a very short book that seemed a bit "teachy" to me, although I shouldn't complain that my 8 year old understands palindromes and anagrams now.
Overall a cute story with some interesting word-play, but I'll stick with YA stuff for the most part. (Although, really, if my kid comes to me and tells me I *HAVE* to read a book, I probably will.)

Very cute book. Logan and his friend Benedict run into the wrong guy at the library–-literally. When Logan slams into the reference guy in the basement and gives him a little lip, Logan gets punished, really and truly punished. He has three days to complete three tasks before Professor Wordsworth will lift the magical punishment that keeps getting Logan in even more trouble.

Punished by David Lubar teaches second and third graders about certain kinds of words like puns, anagrams, and oxymorons. It would be best used in a classroom as a story time book in conjunction with some other vocabulary building exercises.

The book opens with Logan getting in trouble with a reference librarian named Prof. Wordsworth. Grumpy Wordsworth puts a curse on Logan and the only way to undo it is to find seven examples of specific words, for a total of twenty-one, but Logan only has a limited amount of time to accomplish the task.

Why did the person setting the curse have to be a reference librarian? Reference librarians don't go around cursing wayward patrons. Yes, they're about educating patrons but doing so in such a scary and show more horrendous way is anti-librarian. That disconnect really took away from my enjoyment of the book. show less

Another great read aloud!

This is the story of Logan. Logan and his friend are playing tag in the basement of the library when Logan gets stopped by a mysterious man... and punished.

Really he is PUNished. From that moment on everything that comes out of his mouth is a pun. It's fun at first. Then his life begins to fall apart. He gets in trouble at school, sent to the principal who luckily enjoys his puns. But, Logan wants this to stop.

He makes his way back to the library and finds the man again. That's when he begins his quest to break the curse. He has 3 days to find seven palindromes, seven anagrams and 7 oxymorons or he will be cursed with a life of puns.

My class was eager to find examples of puns, palindromes, anagrams and show more oxymorons. ( all words they didn't know before we started reading.) Lubar made this task fun!

We enjoyed this one too! show less

This book does exactly what it sets out to do: provide lots of laughs and tell a fun tale. It also provides some great English grammar lessons without ever seeming didactic.

This book was recommended to me by 5th grade students. I just love it when my students recommend books for me to read.

This is great book to teach students about word plays. It is an excellent read-a-loud that can be followed up with activities allowing the students to create their own puns, anagrams, oxymorons, and palindromes. WOW! What a fun lesson.

Teachers will enjoy the teachable moments and students will enjoy the humor.

Recommended for Grades 3 and up (though it might work well as a read-aloud to 2nd graders. They will find the word play funny, even if they don't quite understand it all.)