ILLUSTRATED BY

Robin Pulver Lynn Rowe Reed

 $16.95

by Robin Pulver
ILLUSTRATED BY
Lynn Rowe Reed

\W
17 retched... dumb...
a pain! Mr. Wright’s class is
through with silent letters.
The students can’t hear silei
letters. They make spelling
too tricky. Should silent
letters be banned forever?
From the creators of
Punctuation Takes a Vacation
and Nouns and Verbs Ha\
a Field Day comes anothe
dynamic grammar book
with which both new and
experienced spellers will
identify

A Holiday House Book

0408 REINFORCED
PORT WASHINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
ONE LIBRARY DRIVE
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y 11050
TEL: 883-4400
 'frustrated
^-}(rUA<_

• ■

il®@p
To Lynn Rowe Reed,
with thanks and cheers
loud and clear!

To my forever friend
Deb Lampe Claxton
LR.R.

Text copyright © 2008 by Robin Pulver

Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Lynn Rowe Reed
All Rights Reserved
Printed and Bound in China
The artwork for this book was made with
acrylic paint on canvas.
The text typeface is Agenda Bold.
www.holidayhouse.com
First Edition
13579 10 8642

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pulver, Robin.
Silent letters loud and clear / by Robin Pulver;
illustrated by Lynn Rowe Reed.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When Mr. Wright’s students express a
dislike for silent letters, the offended letters decide
to teach them a lesson by going on strike.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8234-2127-5 (hardcover)
[1. English language—Phonetics—Fiction. 2. English
s
language—Spelling—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.] They follow no rules when they appear
I. Reed, Lynn Rowe, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.P97325Sil 2008
in some words.
[Fic]—dc22 Watch for them and keep them in sight!
2007016057 Your eyes, not your ears, must spell
these words right.
The publisher would tike to thank Van Stone,
communication expert, and Dr. Hansun Zhang
Waring, Lecturer of Applied Linguistics at Teachers
College, Columbia University, for reviewing the
silent tetters in this book.
c^oock spellers
arg j
vw>t bom,! „ifl!
into their places
without a
Hi
Often, silent e was chosen last
On® day, Mr. Wright checked his wristwaftch. “That
wraps up our spelling lesson/’ he said. “Remember,
a mistakes or two doesn’t mean you’res a bad
speller. It means you’ves ALMOST spellesd the
word rigCnt!

Now, let’s gives a cheer for silent letters!”

iSI
V ;■)

tAp&M:
letters
“If that’s how you feel,” said Mr. WrigCat, “you
shoudd send an e-mail to the newspaper. Mak®
your opinions [known!”

“Neat idea!” said the kids.

Cat® sat down at the computer. The other kids

helped her decid® wLojat to writ®.
Bear Editor:
Mr. WrigM says good spellers ar©
mad©, not born. But we don’t lik©
silent letters! We can’t hear them,
so who needs them? WIfoy us© them?
Silent letters shouEd be bann©d.
We hop© you print this. We hop©
peopl© will read it and agree that
we ar© quit© rigM.
Hop©fully yours,
Mr. WrigM’s class
P.S. Cat© wrot© this.
 The silent letters wer©
dumbfounded ♦

Silent
gh
sigCood. “1 know we ar®,”
“I thougkt muttered silent k.
we wer® “Now my stomack
important!” is in knots.”
/

Silent w wrung his hands.

“I’m a wreck. I feel
wrenched!”

“I don’t know
HOW I feel,”
id silent b.
ait
I’m numb.”

Silent e said,
“I’m 3t the end of my rop®.tt
p
We’rt ill In the sam@ heat
groaned silent a.
Ill’S LEAVE.
Just befor® Cat® pressed
Send, the silent letters
sneak@d out of the kids’
e-mail. said silent e

said silent gh

The silent
letters nesSl®d in
the cav®lik@ darkness.
 y in the tim©
ts and cas^tes

The silent letters didn’t want to suffer in silenc© anymor©

They wanted to speak up for themselves. But how?

Wifeat cou d they do?

 fight
£jth all OUT mif

But the silent letters had

to admit, they weren’t the
fitting or screaming typds

silent g
Everything they
needed was
rigfet ther<§ in the
supply closet.
The next day, Mr. WrigDot’s class couldn't wait to check
the newspaper. They opened rigfet to the editorial pag®.

“Our letter! It’s her®!” shouted Jo®.

“We’r® famous!”
But wlnien they started to read, it was the ■HR |RH
' ' '. I'VSr U- ■' v {*1

kids’ turn to be silent. Sift

Dear Editor:

Mr. rit says good spellers ar mad, not

born. But we don’t lik silent letters! We
can’t hear them, so ho needs them? Wy
us them? Silent letters shoud be bannd.

We hop you print this. We hop peopl

will read it and agree that we ar quit rit.

Hopfully yours,
Mr. rit’s class

P.S. Cat rot this.

 - -1 If

mm
mSm

HI

iSifffi
 ■mmm
THIS LETTER IS

'V'*'V-. V.'V; . vN
The kids werd even mord embarrassdd wfeen they
read the editorial next to their letter.

HUH? WHAT...?
Fire Mr. Rit!

Of course good spellers are mad.

So are we. Our readers don’t have
time to figure out messages with
sloppy spelling. The only reason
we’re printing this letter is to
highlight the spelling crisis in our
schools.

The Editors
 The kids gathered
around Mr. Wright, who
was pal© and sagging.
 6

Suddenly the (knob on the supply closet

door turn®d. The door creak®d open. Out
marched the silent letters. They wer®
carrying protest signs they had mad®.

F$a
tyTTEKai

Tfe IMsk
 RigBot away, with the help letters, Mr. WrisgGiit’s
students wrot® another letter to the editor.

f '
ige 1C

farmers give the eggs pro-

Egg Innovations, which
;he eggs to grocery stores,
ts, hotels, natural foods
WINNER OF THE
membership warehouses
stco. Egg Innovations typ-
ges double the wholesale
onventional eggs, Brunn-
GOLDEN PEN AWARD
VY-:
ly held Egg Innovations
isclose its revenues or how
ds it has, but it added
(Best Letter of the Week)
lickens this year. Those
lay an additional 7.5 mil-
eggs next year, Brunn-

is rising at the retail level,

jp* tracking firms do not
des of cage-free eggs spe-
ut organic egg sales for the
lig Aug. 11 increased 23.4
Dear Editor,
jom the previous year, ac-
fo Nielsen LabelTrends,
manufacturing labeling
5 sold 27.9 million doz-
C eggs during the 52-week
ding Aug. 11. That was up
Never fear. The future looks bright for spelling. We
ly 22.7 million a yearearli-
i LabelTrends tracked sales
iass merchandise and drug-
ith the exception of Wal¬
made peace with silent letters. We have learned
es Inc.
tic eggs made up only
it of the egg sales Nielsen
ids tracked last year, but the *
to bravely face our mistakes.
•owing. Two years ago, less
cent of egg sales were or-

ggs. be considered or-

Our teacher says the answer is ... knuckle down
s, the chickens must not be
mones, antibiotics orchem-
farm also must undergo an
mification process.
and practice!!! As usual, Mr. Wright is rii
Rivers Food Co-op sells
) dozen eggs each week that
labeled cage-free or certi-
lic, grocery manager Rose-
ausser said. Demand is l
rowing because consumers
ral, local products, Mausser
e store’s cage-free eggs,
Your frAends,
$2.45 a dozen, come from
t Ohio farms.
ry stores typically charge
$3.29 for a dozen cage-free
innquell said. The cost of a
Mr. Wright’s Kids and Silent Letters
iventiona! eggs varies based
irket but is currently around

tmers who find cage-free

luction methods more hu-
willing to pay for the higher
:osts. Brunnauell sajd.
8oo<; L g inr
 is the author of
the Mrs. Toggle books and the Axle
Annie books, among other popular
picture books for children. She lives in
upstate New York.

is the creator
of many humorous picture books for
children, including Julius Anteater,
Misunderstood and Please Don't Upset
P.U. Zorilla, both of which she wrote
and illustrated. She lives in Indiana.

Also by Robin Pulver and Lynn Rowe Reed:

A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

Y “Clever... a lighthearted choice.”

—School Library Journal (starred review)

“A welcome reminder to the young and the

wired that punctuation isn't about making
pictures—it’s about making sense.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“What a fun way to teach; every language arts

teacher needs this to punctuate their instruc¬
tion.” —Kirkus Reviews

mw* wm fawFiEip m
“This book is where the action is.”
—School Library Journal

“Pulver’s humorous offering presents an appro¬

priately athletic point of access to an often
too-dry subject.” —The Horn Book

“Reed’s vividly colored cartoons capture the

high-energy activity [and] even the youngest
listeners will realize that sentences need both
nouns and verbs in order to make sense.”
—Booklist

HOLIDAY HOUSE, INC.

425 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10017
www.holidayhouse.com
Printed in China
 discard
Washington Public Library

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