The Word Spy

One day while wandering the aisles of the children’s library with my boys I came across a book entitled The Word Spy. It caught my attention on so many levels – I snatched it up and started reading through it. It’s beautifully written, captivating and downright funny. Despite my children’s young ages at the time, I brought the book home and we started reading through it.

We didn’t finish the book before it was due back at the library. Rather than renew it I returned it and sought out my own copy. It took a while because I found it’s sequel at the used book store and was determined to find the first there as well. As it turns out I didn’t, I bought on special at a very small very local book shop instead. But that’s not really what I wanted to share with you. The book is an absolute treasure.

How We Use The Word Spy:

I like to break this book down into bite-sized bits that make my kids beg for more. Each chapter has many different themes or topics covered within it. I like to read only one of those topics each time we sit down. Why? Because less is more, especially when it comes to insanely crazy or heavy topics like grammar.

My kids remember, quite easily, what a palindrome or a Tom Swiftie is when they only learn one of those items each day instead of trying to comprehend them all at once. They are eager to speak in Pig Latin or discuss Malapropisms over dinner because it’s still new and curious to them. Plus, I’m going to be honest with you if we could all teach the way The Word Spy writes, our children wouldn’t ever want to graduate!

Each morning we all sit down at our learning table and have what we’ve dubbed as “our morning together block”. We sing the hymn of the month, use our memory box, read the scriptures of the day, and then I pull out The Word Spy. My kids enjoy all of these things, but there’s often the most excitement over this book!

Grammar has always been pretty simple in our home but this book is what helps keep it that way! My children learned about punctuation, plurals, how the alphabet came to be, clichés, tongue twisters, portmanteau words and so much more. There were never tears over it, unless you count the day I was using Spoonerisms and one of my boys just couldn’t seem to make up his own and became distressed.

I choose not to add anything to this. No notebooking pages, all though I did consider it, no matching workbook pages, no demands for a three paragraph containing anything we’ve learned written with a pen name, nothing. Although I did debate an end of book test.. We keep this oh so simple and I think that’s what really makes this book so amazingly fun and engaging. My kids simply cannot get enough of it. They beg for me to read more & are always annoyed when I say, “Oh, not today guys!”

The Word Spy has written her book in such a fun and engaging way we find ourselves giggling, googling and researching at times for more information. Then there’s the codes she ends each and every chapter of the book with. I mean, after all, you can’t be a spy without making use of it, right? Here’s the catch, my kids think they are just cracking codes, but Mamma knows they are really utilizing a few things they’ve learned from the current chapter! Ahh, yes, that Ursula Dubosarsky is one tricky Word Spy!

What I love about The Word Spy:

My kids adore The Word Spy! So much so that when we finished it they sat there quietly for a minute before screaming, “You have the next one, right?” Yes, my cheeky little boys I do indeed.

Our home evaluator {home education process in Tasmania} asked me about the book as she’d never heard of it before. She fell in love and asked me, on the spot, to give her a, “three sentence quip I can use in the upcoming newsletter as to why this book is good!”

This book is written to kids, for kids and we adults are just lucky enough to be able to sneak a bit of it in from time to time! Seriously, this author doesn’t dumb things down, but she explains things and speaks to you so you really get what she’s saying. How many kids beg for more from their grammar book?

The price is perfect! At our local little book shop I paid $17. That was for a grammar book for my children for an entire year of school! You can also purchase this book through Book Depository, although it’s currently out of stock. You can also get it through Amazon for $12 or for your Kindle for $14. {Please note that if purchased as The Word Spy you will most certainly have an Australian and British theme to the book; If purchased through Amazon you need to search for The Word Snoop; The Book Depository has The Word Snoop in stock, but it will not have the British/Australian slant/spellings, etc.}

We’ve yet to leave this book laying around and not find someone picking it up and reading it. From teenage nieces to grown adults. It really is that addictive!

The Word Spy even has her own nifty blog where children can ask her questions and she’ll answer them!

What We Don’t Love:

You know, the only downside to this book is that our favourite international book seller, Book Depository, is currently out of stock. And let’s be honest, that’s not exactly the fault of the author or the book!

Bottom Line:

The Word Spy is amazing and any book that makes my kids excited and chatty about grammar is top notch in our home!

You might also like:

• The Picture Book Homeschool
• Simply Grammar
• English 2600 High School Grammar Course

If you want to see more of the craziness Kendra and her family got up to with The Word Spy, from leaving pig latin messages at the front door to attempting to play with Palindromes, check out their blog.

-originally published April 2013