Momo celebrating time to read: The Word Collector by Peter H Reynolds

Saturday, September 12, 2020

The Word Collector by Peter H Reynolds

Jerome collects words. He develops a huge collection which he then organises into categories. His tower of word books grows so tall it falls over and the words are scattered but this leads to a new discovery. The combinations of words look like poems. Jerome also realised some very simple words are actually very powerful. Words such as "I'm sorry"; "You matter"; and "I understand.".

"The more words he knew the more clearly he could share with the world what he was thinking, feeling, and dreaming."

Every page in The Word Collector is a delight. So many delicious words to savour.

Recently a teacher in a school, where I do occasional volunteer work, mentioned the staff are participating in professional development on the topic of vocabulary. In 2017 I did an extensive presentation for my school staff on this topic. As a part of this presentation I included lots of picture books and lots of poems.

The Word Party

(Richard Edwards)

Loving words clutch crimson roses,

Rude words sniff and pick their noses,

Sly words come dressed up as foxes,

Short words stand on cardboard boxes,

Common words tell jokes and gabble,

Complicated words play Scrabble,

Swear words stamp around and shout,

Hard words stare each other out,

Foreign words look lost and shrug,

Careless words trip on the rug,

Long words slouch with stooping shoulders,

Code words carry secret folders,

Silly words flick rubber bands,

Hyphenated words hold hands,

Strong words show off, bending metal,

Sweet words call each other 'petal',

Small words yawn and suck their thumbs,

Till at last the morning comes.

Kind words give out farewell posies.

Snap! The dictionary closes.

Take a look at this sentence from Slowly Slowly Slowly said the Sloth by Eric Carle:

I am lackadaisical, I dawdle and I dillydally. I am also unflappable, languid, stoic, impassive, sluggish, lethargic, placid, calm, mellow, laid-back and, well, slothful! I am relaxed and tranquil, ...

All of those glorious words but of course they are not simple words. When reading picture books to young children it is often so surprising when a child asks for the meaning of what, on the surface anyway, seems to be quite an every day word. A recent example I heard comes from the book We're Stuck which my friend was sharing a young class. These children who live near the ocean but she discovered only one child in the class knew the word oar. This is just a small example. Over years of reading to children I am constantly surprised when children have missed seemingly simple words. Is the limited vocabulary of our students a product of the 'screen age'? Less conversation between adults and children? Less time for longer sustained conversations?

Here is a video of the whole book of The Word Collector. Here is the book trailer from Scholastic. The Word Collector has inspired a huge number of brilliant activities to use with your class. Peter Reynolds has a web site for his book.

Michelle and Barack Obama selected this book to read aloud during the early days of Covid-19.

Michelle and I want to do our part to give all you parents a break today, so we’re reading “The Word Collector”… It’s a fun book that vividly illustrates the transformative power of words––and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Barak Obama

There are some wonderful picture books and novels you might use to raise awareness of words and perhaps even to enhance the word knowledge and vocabulary of your students.