An Interesting Word for Every day of the Year by Dr Meredith L Rowe and Monika Forsberg

This is a book I would like to gift to every classroom (Grades 1, 2 and 3).  In my former school library I used to display a word of the week and when we installed a new computer catalogue I would issue a word challenge to Grade 3 each week where they had to use my word of the week in an exciting sentence and then we published the best entries on our catalogue homepage for the whole school community to read, enjoy and perhaps even discover a new word or two.

There are 52 weeks of words (365 words) in this book spread over 105 pages.  There is also a full index if you need to refer to a specific word or share an illustration of a particular word with your class. Many of the illustrations are very funny.  

Here is the blurb from Walker Books: Each fully illustrated scene provides a fun and supportive platform to introduce little readers to big words and extend their vocabulary, which studies have recently proven to be the biggest indicator of a child’s potential later in life. Curated by a literacy expert, these 365 aspirational words will fire your child’s imagination, help them label their emotions and expand their comprehension. Each word is explained beneath in simple language to aid understanding and inspire a love of language.

There are no unfamiliar words in this book for me as an adult reader to discover but there are sure to be plenty of new words to share with a class.  Here are a few examples:

gratuitous; meagre; voracious; unfathomable;sabotage; obstinate; perilous; inconspicuous; and succumb.

Take a look at the art of Swedish illustrator Monika Forsberg (she now lives in London). You can see inside this book here.

What a Wonderful Word by Nicola Edwards and Luisa Uribe

In our Sydney Morning Herald newspaper columnist David Astle often talks about new words, invented words and words from other languages. This week he talked about a word for a plank that slides over your takeaway coffee across a counter needed in this time of social distancing. People sent in all sort of funny and insightful words such as cafeuplt; telescoffe; and jenga dispenser.

Sometimes in English we need a lot of words to explain a simple concept while other languages might have developed one, often quite powerful word, for the same thing.

Here is a sentence I created using words from What a Wonderful Word and below is a translation:

I was so happy to gokötta today. Of course it is winter here so I knew it was a gluggavedur day. I was thinking about the lady I met yesterday because my tartle was awkward. She has such pretty hair but in this time of COVID-19 I guess no one in her family can cafuné. Anyway it was so good to see my friends yesterday. After all the weeks of lock down I felt retrouvailles.

gokötta - to wake up early in the morning so you can go outside and hear the birds singing SWEDISH
gluggavedur - weather that looks beautiful while you're inside but is much too cold when you step outside ICELANDIC
tartle - to hesitate because you have forgotten someone's name SCOTS
cafuné - the act of running one's fingers through someones hair - PORTUGUESE
retrouvailles - the happiness of being reunited with someone after a long time apart. FRENCH

It's nice to know that other people have given a name to a feeling you've had: whether you've tartled at a party (hesitated when you forget a person's name) or had abbiocco because your eyes were bigger than your stomach (drowsiness after eating a big meal).  Book Trust

I am very sad to report that this book - What a Wonderful Word - appears to be out of print. It was only published in 2018. I am shaking my head that a book as wonderful as this one has had such a short life in print and therefore in bookshops - thank goodness for great libraries! In this book you will marvel at the words from around the world and you are sure to enjoy all the extra 'facts' provided on each page. I was thrilled to see one of my favourite words included - gobbledygook! And to learn about the power of simply holding hands.

Here are some other books I treasure on this topic. I especially love the book Words Borrowed from other languages. It is a large format or big book which you can share with a whole class. I often made use of it in my former school library.