Eats, Shoots and Leaves: Why Commas Really Do Make A Difference by Lynne Truss

I absolutely love books that can help me teach concepts to my students! As the title hints to, this non-fiction book is a great way to inform students on the correct usage of commas and how they can change the meaning of the sentence. For example, the author begins by sharing a story of a panda who walks into the library, eats his sandwich, shoots a bow-an-arrow, and then leaves. Before he exists, the librarian asks the panda what he was doing. The panda replies by saying, “I’m a panda…that’s what it says we do”. The panda refers the librarian to a page that describes a panda as a “large black-and-white bear like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots, and leaves. The author then provides several more examples of how commas can drastically change the meaning of a sentence. The back of the book also provides explanations for the meaning of the sentences. I believe commas are an extremely hard concept to understand. In fact, the author even points out that, “the comma is the most used and misused” of all punctuation marks. So, as I stated earlier, I believe this book would be great to use as a supplemental material to teach the usage of commas.