Books and gifts for kid who LOVES spelling/grammar/mechanics?

[Dmmetler]

DD6 is just plain a languag-y kid. To get the idea, she fell asleep over "Painless Grammar" (which is designed as a review text for high school students) last night. Eats, Shoots, and Leaves and the other books by the same author are favorites. We have Bananagrams, and she's been able to play a good game of scrabble since she was 3. She LOVES editing, and has done three years of EM Daily Editing "for fun". We had a parent come into co-op to teach some basic Mandarin and Chinese culture to the elementary group, and DD was peppering her with questions about how you show subject verb agreement in Mandarin. MCT has been like candy to her. So has Latin. And Greek.

 

And so on.

 

Any ideas for good Christmas gifts for a kid who I figure is probably either going to end up being a copy editor or a linguist when she grows up?

[jillian]

Rosetta Stone might be a good kind of big gift.

Prufrock has some great stuff from what I've seen looking around.

[Ester Maria]

Does she read in any modern foreign languages? (I see she studies Spanish, so that is why I ask.)

You can get her "normal" books, of the kind she would like in English on the topics she is interested in or novels, but in other languages.

[Crimson Wife]

My oldest is like that, and she :001_wub: language-related board games. Balderdash, Scattergories, Taboo, Apples to Apples, Mad Gab, etc.

[Iucounu]

I would consider some etymological resources. These are worth a look:

 

Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062700847 (also see http://www.amazon.com/dp/0550142304)

Word Histories and Mysteries: From Abracadabra to Zeus, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005Q5TEWO

Word Origins, http://www.amazon.com/Word-Origins-Their-Romantic-Stories/dp/0517265745

The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0198611129

Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415050774

The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004KAB5AU

 

I haven't read all of these, but have at least examined all of them, and think that each might appeal to the right young reader. The OED can of course also be found in electronic form, but it might be a bit of overkill and rarely used.

 

I use and link to Amazon a lot just because of the nice presentation (cover graphics and sample pages often included) and the easy ability to browse similar items at the bottom of the page. For buying books, though, I usually check for the best deal at a site like http://www.bookfinder.com .

[Iucounu]

(submitting seems to have created a double post)

[Belacqua]

She might like There is No Zoo in Zoology; it's about pronunciation, not grammar, but my language-happy kid loved it. Warning: you will be corrected incessantly if you encounter what is now known in our house, darkly, as "an Elster word."

 

Have you used the Editor in Chief workbooks? They were big winners around here.

 

Also, she might enjoy playing with the NACLO (linguistics olympiad) problems.

[love2read]

Ice skates. A pass to the opera. Really, I would get her out in the world in as many "unique to her" situations that you can manage so that she has great things to write about when the bug bites her.