Lazily, Crazily, Just a Bit Nasally: More about Adverbs

By: Brian P. Cleary
Illustrator: Brian Gable
Publisher: Millbrook Press
Publication Date: April 2010
ISBN: 978-1580139373
Reviewed by: Deb Fowler
Review Date: April 2010

A brown cat had his staff in hand and was trying to see where his sheep had gone to. Some of those wiggly eyed critters were right next to him while the others were over there. Of course an adverb can “sometimes tell us where.” They can also tell us when. Two jazzy cats with sunnies and visors were admiring the statue of a long gone hero cat, but they knew that “this is now and that was then.” Three goofy cows watched their pal as he got his collar stuck on the edge of a waning moon. “Adverbs sometimes tell us how” and someone would have to “carefully remove this cow.” Wow! They can tell you how often or modify a verb. Can you tell what is going on with the zany cats and adverbs in this rhyme?

Lazily sleeping,
nasally weeping,
a dude eating food
while he’s rudely beep-beeping.

Crazily, Curtis repainted
the Chang bridge.
Adverbs add all kinds
of life to our language!

For some youngsters trying to learn about different parts of speech and their functions can be a daunting task, and because adverbs have many different functions, it is sometimes difficult for them to learn and categorize them. The cats in this book will let you know by example (and in some zany rhymes) that an “adverb is a word or phrase that describes, when, how, where, how often, and how much.” The adverbs are color coded to make it easier to sort them. For example, the word “seldom” is printed in green because it tells the young student that it tells how often something was done. The illustrations are vibrant, animated and comical which add that much needed visual touch to learning. This is one in the series of “Words Are CATegorical,” a series you might want to look into for homeschool or classroom use!

Quill says: Learning the parts of speech can be a daunting task for some youngsters, but these lazy crazy cats will help BIG time!