Dreyer’s English (Adapted for Young Readers): Good Advice for Good Writing

Gr 9 Up–Dreyer is delightful—as both author and narrator. His witty charm, his utter devotion to his craft (despite his comical protestations of “I hate grammar”!) are as immediately, joyfully recognizable in the ears as on the page. But, so much of Dreyer’s exacting erudition needs to be seen not just heard. Take Chapter 2, “56 ASSORTED THING TO DO (AND NOT TO DO) WITH PUNCTUATION”: periods, commas, even maybe apostrophes are recognizable enough to imagine as he presents various examples; now consider hyphens, dashes (“in two flavors: em and en,” ahem) as they’re placed in the correct parts of phrases and sentences (six-year-old, New York–to–Chicago flight, “how to type them—I’m happy to reveal the secret”). Then imagine numbers/numerals, diacritics, italics, common spelling mistakes. Oof. Confused much?