The Return of the Word Spy: A Funny and Fantastic Voyage into Language, Grammar and Beyond

by Ursula Dubosarsky, Tohby Riddle (Illustrator)

From the beginning of time, the WORD SPY has been creeping down hallways, hiding in shadows and journeying through different lands to discover everything there is to know about the English language. In her first book, The Word Spy, she shared with us the secrets she'd learnt about English, from the first alphabet in 4000 BC right up to the tricks of modern texting. In The Return of the Word Spy she continues the fascinating journey through language, with chapters on language families, how we learn to speak, grammar and written forms of communication. In an accessible, engaging style, the WORD SPY explains the meaning of nouns, verbs, pronouns, 'dead' languages, word origins and other wordy wonders.

Packed with cartoons, games, facts and puzzles, The Return of the Word Spy continues the WORD SPY's fascinating journey through the English language.

Genres: Nonfiction, Education, Words

268 pages, Hardcover

First published May 4, 2010

About the author

Ursula Dubosarsky is an award-winning author of numerous books for children and young adults. About The Golden Day, her first book with Candlewick Press, she says, "The little girls watch, wonder, respond, change, and grow — and then their childhood is gone, forever. This element of the story, I suppose, is at least partly autobiographical. But, as I say — all of our teachers come home safe and sound in the end." Ursula Dubosarsky lives in Australia.

Reviews

[Ben Shaw]

i picked this up in a bookshop yesterday and thought I may as well buy it as I am interested in linguistics. However I should have inspected it more thoroughly as I was definitely not the target audience! I recommend this for people with no prior linguistic knowledge. Probably children under the age of twelve. I still enjoyed the book because I like linguistics, but it was largely uninformative and, due to the target audience being children, was incidentally infantilising and condescending in its tone.

[Sean Harding]

Second volume in this non-fiction language study for younger readers, but can be accessed by all ages is again readable, and engaging and has great exercises and interesting information. The style is great, and the substance is great. Dubosarsky is a real talent in both fiction and non-fiction writing.

[Tina]

Following on from the word spy, the investigation continues into the history of words, languages and grammar, how we use and abuse language and fun writing facts, codes to crack and social history surrounding these wonderful elements that we use, without thinking much about it, everyday.

[Sharlene Evans]

Fantastic and intriguing read.

[Heidi]

My youngest would REALLY like to give the book a star rating of SIX!

We really love these books and will be using them both as a reference when we work through our grammar curriculum next year.

[Steve lovell]

Full marks to Ursula Dubosarsky for producing The Word Spy, a CBC Award nominated book that made the foibles of our language so accessible to young minds. From this book about the mother tongue as written came many ideas for lessons, or parts thereof, for my students. This, the follow-up, concentrates more on the vagaries of English, delving into parts of speech, how we learn to speak and the ways our language has changed over time. I feel she delves a little too deeply at times. Grammar is a turn-off, interesting to only a select few young minds in the age-group she's aiming at - and some of this work is at a depth I would never tackle for a heterogeneous class. That said, most of the book is intriguing, simply explained and, above all, entertaining. The added leaf of braille is an attraction, and I can again foresee many classroom uses. Its attractive presentation is aided by the doodlings of Toby Ribble and this sequel is a must for all school libraries as well as all lovers of our tongue, especially those who aspire to teach it.

[Emmeline]

While I did not enjoy this book as much as the first one, it was still an enjoyable read. It was a little painful to read in the childish tone that it is written in, but I remember loving it as a kid. It really goes through the basics, but who knows, maybe it'll teach you something you didn't know :)

[Zena]

Grammar is boring....well here is the antidote and about as good as it gets in context for children....teachers this is a call to arms!!!!

[Rosemary Spark]

Brilliant funny interesting informative and did I say funny

[Miranda Clark]

Well done. I wish someone had handed me this with a pass to skip 7th grade English class.

[Madi]

Once again, an amazing book! :)

[Veronica]

Very fun! I liked solving everything. This is a book worth buying!

[BellaN]

Quirky, fun and has some code breaking included. Very good for english

[Nicole]

Loved it!

[Mrs Child]

Continues with some interesting facts about 'language'.