![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.ebayimg.com\/images\/g\/KWgAAOSwB-1Ywb9M\/s-l300.jpg\")
Dr. Dolittle and the Pushmi-Pullyu.<\/p><\/div> if i was the sunshine and you\u2019d call me stay<\/p>\n if you were the winter and you\u2019d call me sing<\/p>\n Delicious, right? Why would I rain on this poetic parade? Who even notices the difference? (Pushmi.) There is so much delight in this book, from\u00a0excellent\u00a0juxtapositions to\u00a0surprising\u00a0metaphors\u2014and beyond the words, Loren Long’s soft illustrations are\u00a0lovely. if i were the sunshine and you\u2019d call me stay<\/p>\n if you were the winter and you\u2019d call me sing<\/p>\n To me, it’s even prettier without “was.”\u00a0The construction is less visible, which makes the poetry sing. And when there’s a gentle opportunity to lead by example, without even needing to teach, is that a lost opportunity?\u00a0(Pullyu.) Grammar rules are relaxing in children’s books faster than I am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nDoes anyone remember the two-sided animal from Dr. Dolittle, the Pushmi-Pullyu? It was a beast with two fronts, each of which stubbornly wanted to lead, so attempts to move forward in either direction\u00a0went nowhere.
\nI am feeling a little pushmi\u00a0and a lot pullyu about the current\u00a0state of grammar in children’s books these days. There is a LOT of casual bad grammar floating around now\u2014even in picture books, even in picture book titles<\/em>\u2014and I am struggling, fellow readers. I understand that language is fluid, vegetable, ever-changing,\u00a0and reactive,\u00a0yet I was raised by grammar enthusiasts and taught school by English teachers whose rules were precise and immutable.\u00a0It’s not that I never violate those rules;\u00a0there’s a tiny rebellious thrill to be had by beginning sentences with “And”\u00a0or ending them\u00a0with prepositions. (A schoolmarmish thrill, sure, but\u00a0rebellion is individual.)
\n
\nThe grammar slide\u00a0in children’s books began in young adult novels.\u00a0Authors argued that\u00a0creating\u00a0teenagers who spoke perfectly grammatical English\u00a0would undercut the authentic vernacular of those characters, and to an extent, I understand and agree with that argument. (That said, there are plenty of authors who do manage to create believable characters who somehow adhere to the rules of grammar without drawing attention to it or undermining themselves as\u00a0believable teens. Just saying.)
\nAt some point, what began as a quest for authenticity\u00a0has begun to\u00a0feel either like ignorance of the rules (by both authors and editors) or pandering to an audience who may not know better. Beginning sentences\u00a0with “me and her”\u2014as in “Me and her went to the mall”\u2014doesn’t strike me as necessary. Maybe YA protagonist\u00a0Chervil\u00a0wouldn’t say, “She and I went to the mall,” but she would say, “We went…,” so\u00a0why doesn’t she?\u00a0It’s the extraneous bad grammar, the bad grammar that doesn’t lead a reader anywhere interesting or important, that chafes worst.
\nIn recent buying meetings for upcoming books, I’ve noticed so many current books that misuse “was” in place of “were.” If Pluto Was a Pea<\/em>. If My Moon Was Your Sun<\/em>.\u00a0If I Was the Sunshine<\/em>. All three of these are picture books, and there is no good reason to throw away the wonderful “were” for the\u00a0pragmatic\u00a0“was” in any of these books. We use “were” when\u00a0a situation is hypothetical or impossible, and “was” when\u00a0a situation could have happened. It’s a useful distinction, so the erosion of it troubles me.
\nIf Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island<\/em> works because it’s\u00a0talking about people whose names were, in fact, changed at Ellis Island. As far as I can reckon, Pluto never will be a pea, or the size of one, and using the phrase, “If Pluto were a pea…” throughout the book would have been both correct and helped train little ears to hear and become familiar with correct usage. Sometimes I\u00a0suspect that authors and editors fear that using\u00a0certain correct forms will sound snooty or formal. I truly don’t believe that using “were” uncomfortably elevates a sentence.
\nMy strongest Pushmi-Pullyu moment came last week when I read the text for Julie Fogliano’s new picture book, If I Was the Sunshine<\/em>. Julie is a poet, the real thing, a master of language and deceptive simplicity and rhythm, and I love her books with a deep joy and respect. Now comes a beautiful one I so want to love,\u00a0but its indiscriminate flickering between “was” and “were” in equally subjunctive situations pulled me up short. A few of its lines, which are lovable for so many other reasons:<\/p>\n
\nand you were the day
\ni\u2019d call you hello!<\/p>\n
\nand i was the spring
\ni\u2019d call you whisper<\/p>\n
\n![](\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-cJGtNuEEFSk\/W8OhSdi2pkI\/AAAAAAAAiuE\/nwcU6In7fZspMgKKV4JWkDT-4KPp9UIZQCK4BGAYYCw\/s1600\/if%2Bi%2Bwas%2Bthe%2Bsunshine%2Brgb.jpg\")
\nBut\u00a0I do find myself wanting a poet to bring the toddlers full poetic beauty.
\nWhy would\u00a0we choose to switch between “was” and “were,” further confusing young readers and perpetuating the trend toward\u00a0obliterating the difference between the two words? I suspect there\u00a0may have been a concern\u00a0about word\u00a0repetition\u00a0overuse, and as someone who wrote a book that uses the phrase “how do you wokka-wokka”\u00a0half a dozen or so times,\u00a0that writerly worry resonates.
\nI do not believe that any poetry would be lost here, or that the ear would be fatigued, if “were” had been used throughout. Let’s see:<\/p>\n
\nand you were the day
\ni\u2019d call you hello!<\/p>\n
\nand i were the spring
\ni\u2019d call you whisper<\/p>\n
\nI\u00a0am probably in the minority. It may be that “was”\u00a0sounds harsh to me not because its letter sounds buzz (wuzzzzz) instead of murmur (werrrrrrre), but because it\u00a0sounds\u00a0wrong. My ear expects “were” and therefore I experience “was” as a\u00a0miniature aural slap. But the majority of our culture no longer differentiates between the subjunctive “were” and the historical “was,” so it’s likely that few people\u00a0notice the difference\u2014and even those who do may not care. That large slice of readers\u00a0likely\u00a0would<\/em> find the repetition of “were” annoying. (Back to Pushmi.)
\nIn wrestling with myself over this issue, I turned to the newly bestselling Dreyer’s English<\/em>, to see what author Benjamin had to say. I refer you to page 100 for the full text, but suffice it to say that he struggles a bit, too.\u00a0After outlining the proper usage, he\u00a0goes on to say, “Well, here’s the thing. When I was a baby copy editor, I was told by my betters not to impose the subjunctive on writers who did not naturally use it. […] That was a marching order I could, for a good long while, march with, and if you’re satisfied with it as well, then by all means march away. But if you’re feeling a little itchy, let’s make another run at it. […] I tend to think of it thus: If I could insert the words ‘in fact’ after ‘if I,’ I might as well go with a ‘was’ rather than a ‘were.'”
\nEven writing this post, I’m laughing at how old and fussy I must sound. As someone impatient to overturn outdated political and social structures and strictures, I’m a little surprised to come up against the places where I feel rigid and old-fashioned. Ah, Ms. Taylor, what you created with your sentence diagrams back in 1978!
\nIf I was pedantic, I’m sorry. (And if I were less flexible, I wouldn’t be able to own that ‘was.’ So not all is lost.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"