Beginning with an explanation of what a pun is, Cleary illustrates the concept with some highly entertaining puns organized by topic, which include: music, animals, food and geography. Humourous illustrations assist the reader in interpreting the puns, which would be helpful for English Language Learners. The last page also contains a list of further resources. This book would be a great introduction to puns, and could be used as a source for "puns-of-the-day." A fun read for children and adults alike. ( )

This book was made for the classroom. Cleverly called "Rhyme and PUNishment," Brian Cleary fills a book with cute, funny wordplay, substituting sound-alike words for various phrases. This one, found in the "Food" topic section: "We RELISH time together/and we'll PICKLE little tune/ICING and play the fiddle/while Mom JAMS on bassoon."

I would omit one poem from the book, due to a reference to sex and violence (in the music section, about TV: "sax and violins"). Other than that, it was a fun book.

After a little research I also found that Cleary has penned a number of other books which are Language Arts-related; one on nouns, adverbs, prepositions, "Dearly, Nearly Insincerely: What is an adverb?" even synonyms and antonyms. I haven't read any other books in the series, but I think the series would make a great addition to a ELA section of a classroom's library. ( )