Elbert's Bad Word by Audrey Wood

This blog is for loved, less well loved, & even disliked books (in short, the good, the bad, & the ugly) & it's also totally biased, so making no apologies. 

Anyway.

The story of a child learning how to control his tongue & steer clear of bad words, I thought this one looked kinda cute & promising. I know it's supposed to be taken in a lighthearted vein -- & I expect my child to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff -- but for this particular age 1) I wasn't entirely happy about the prominence of the gardener-wizard solving the whole problem (esp. without self-control premiering at all) & then 2) his solution being to just replace the Bad Word with Polite Fillers. (I'm actually more of the camp that a bit of strong language -- not irreverent -- is sometimes called for too, so there's that.) And I'm certainly not against funny British-isms, but two of the minced (replacement) oaths they DO use in here ("zounds and gadzooks") both refer to Christ on the cross (i.e. "God's wounds" & "God's hooks" lit. the nails on the cross). Soooo.... yeah.  

All in all, for this age, I think this particular title isn't really necessary & best case scenario might just muddy the water a bit.

So there's my two cents worth! ;)