Spill the Beans: 100 silly sayings and peculiar phrases - Collins Kids - ★★★★★

PUBLISHER: Collins Kids

ILLUSTRATOR: Julia Murray

GENRE: Language

PUBLICATION DATE: August 15, 2024

RATING: 5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A splendid compilation of a hundred idioms and their origins. Loved the light-hearted approach to something so educational. Much recommended to students and adult word nerds. (à la moi!)

Of all the things that can be challenging in a language, idioms are somewhere right at the top. Idioms are never literal, so guessing their meanings is often a tiresome task, not just for learners but also native speakers. More importantly, idioms cannot be translated into or from other languages. (This is something a few authors need to learn! It is annoying to see BIPOC authors butcher their native-language idioms by translating them word-to-word into English.) As such, the best way to learn idioms is to have a resource to provide you with a wide list of common idioms and their meanings in an interesting presentation that makes learning appealing. This book fits that niche requirement perfectly.

The 100 idioms and sayings in this book are divided into ten easy sections such as food, animals, music, clothing, and so on. Each page contains one idiom/saying, its meaning in detail, and its origin, and at times, mentioning similar idioms from other languages. In some cases, where the meaning sprung up from a myth or a superstition, that is also mentioned. Wherever there is a word that means one thing in the UK and something else in the US, that is also clarified.

Each idiom is also accompanied by an illustration that represents its meaning literally. This text-image combination works excellently, as the sketches, the meaning and the etymology all work in sync to ensure that the correct interpretation of the idiom stays in our heads.

As a word nerd, I already knew most of the idioms and many of their origin stories. So it was a pleasant surprise to discover some of the more obscure sources that gave rise to some commonplace idioms, many of whose origins we don’t even think twice about. So many ordinary idioms had extraordinary beginnings – it’s amazing!

The cover also does its job brilliantly. There are seventeen idioms hidden within the cover graphics. The answers are mentioned at the start of the book. This is a fun way of setting the mood and motivating youngsters to try out something that wouldn’t typically appeal to them.

When I asked my daughters if they wanted to buddy-read an idiom book with me, both of them refused outright. But when they saw me looking at the cover and working out the idioms, they joined in the guessing game and then sat with me till the end. When I reminded them of how they had refused to join me at first, the honest answer was, “We never knew an English book would be so much fun. Most English books are boring!” Well, Collins Kids, you satisfied two very demanding little readers here - kudos!

In short, the three of us enjoyed this interesting collection, learning such varied idioms and how they entered the English language.

Definitely recommended! This entertaining + educational book would be a useful resource for students as well as learners. The writing makes it a great option for tweens and teens, and of course, to adults who want to become the bee’s knees of their peer group.

My thanks to Collins Reference for providing the DRC of “Spill the Beans: 100 silly sayings and peculiar phrases” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.