Don't Dangle Your Participle by Vanita Oelschlager. Illustrated by Mike Desantis. Vanita Books. Children's Nonfiction. Grammar with cozy illustrations. Wonderful, instructive material explained easily with color, humorous pictures and clear sentences. Warning: this book may provoke giggles in your child! Highly recommend this and all Vanita Oelschlager books. Thanks to NetGalley and Vanita Books for providing this ebook for review.

The intro page may start to lose you as it gets into the grammar rules, but after that, this book is pure fun learning. It has well-illustrated examples of what a sentence would actually mean if worded one way versus another. The pictures are fun and will leave a lasting impression on your brain so you remember the grammar rules. Addages such as these are the things that still run through my head daily, even 30+ years after teachers shared them with me.

The illustrations are what really make this book successful, and even some adults could profit from studying the examples! Cute sentences become adorably absurd with dangling participles; the pictures illustrate the absurdity and provide some chuckles along the way. This would likely be an accessible and memorable way to teach this aspect of grammar.

Cute little book, but I'm still going to mess it up, since speaking correctly sounds funny.

Good book! My kid really liked it. 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. It also shows the importance of the word's placement in the sentence.

'Don't Dangling your Participle' is a must read for all children!! So informative and delightful to read! I love how the illustrations blatantly illustrate an incorrect sentence with a dangling participle versus the correct version! Children will easily be able to understand the difference. Quite honestly, this book would make an interesting educational visual learning tool for children of all ages!

I highly recommend this adorable, imaginative learning tool for educators and children of all ages!

This is a really cute idea--sort of like Amelia Bedelia! And I love the idea of demonstrating good sentence structure, but... Some of the examples of correct participle phrases were unnecessarily complicated, and the more correct thing to do would be to drop the participle altogether and rephrase the sentence. Which is nitpicky criticism, I know, but if we're talking about good sentence structure, I've got to go there.

One of the best tools I have come across for one of the more in depth rules of English grammar! I absolutely loved this book. It is funny, clever, charmingly illustrated and educational. I'm VERY much looking forward to when my child reaches elementary school to share this story with him. Outstanding. It's along the lines of a marvelously illustrated book version of Schoolhouse Rock!

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This book is so good! I have yet to meet a person who hears "dangling participle" and doesn't look afraid. This book clearly explains what it is, how to spot it, and how it can change the meaning of a sentence. As a former editor, I highly recommend this book. (For kids AND adults!)

An informative book on what a participle is and how it “gets lost”. I like that they used illustrations to show a “lost” participle, and then a corrected version on the next page. Short but useful.

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Cute book, and easy way to come to understand participles and how they can be "dangling". The artwork was very bright and fun.

I must admit, I had to read the introductory two pages (the ones that explained what participles are) at least three times before I could make sense of what was being explained. I know what a participle is, but the way it was explained seemed very complicated! The text was small and lengthy, for a children's book, and I was really quite surprised by this. The rest of the book was filled with charming full-page illustrations which depicted various sentences where the participles had been left 'dangling'. I feel these were rather effective. If it wasn't for the introductory pages this would probably be a 5/5, but those first few pages belong in a book aimed at teens in my opinion.

This book effectively teaches children the concept of the dangling participle. Through illustration and editing, the sentences are corrected. I give this an A+ for teaching the info in a way that is simple to understand. It gets a 5+ star rating for the wonderful illustrations.

The illustrations and quirky scenarios are what really carry this book. The color and imagination that this book uses to teach a grammatical rule is wonderful.

I struggle, though, being confused with what was being addressed. The initial page, explaining what the mean by not dangling the participle, was helpful in some ways and then in others it only added to my confusion.

A cute picture book that tackles a difficult grammar topic. The illustrations and example sentences are fun, but I feel that they lack fluidity. Perhaps creating sentences that relate to one another would help keep the meaning clear.

A hilarious and silly way to teach children about participles and what makes them dangle! Any English teacher would be incredibly happy to use this book in their classroom.

The bright illustrations are hilarious, and the various weird situations that the incorrect sentences describe are brought to life in every picture. If you leave a participle dangling in the wrong place, it could be the children at the zoo who are growling over their snacks, instead of lions growling as they should be!

One of the best things about this book is that it demonstrates how important it is to communicate clearly with language, and what silly results you will get if you aren't careful with your words.

If I were an English teacher, introducing Participles for the first time or reviewing them, I would have my class try to act out each sentence, first the incorrect way, and then the correct way. Turning it into a game would really solidify the concept in the students minds, and this book makes it possible. I can just imagine the laughter in a classroom reading this book!

This book makes learning memorable and fun!

Disclaimer: I received an ecopy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts, and are not influenced by anyone.

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.

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

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.