PICTURE BOOK - A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston

2016, Candlewick Press

HC $17.99

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.11 - 921 ratings

My rating: 3.5

Endpapers: Scrolling books titles and authors

Illustrations:  "Hand-lettered, and the typographical landscapes were typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro.  The illustrations were done in watercolor, pencil, and digital collage."  Very little color

1^st line/s:
"I am a child of books.  
I come from a world of stories
and upon my imagination
I float.
I have sailed across a sea of words
to ask if you will come away with me.
Some people have forgotten where I live
but along these words I can show you the way. ..."

My comments:  This book is not a story.  It's a collection of ideas about imagination, reading, and being swept away by words.  It's a poem for readers, an ode to book lovers.  The illustrations are held together and created by words themselves, parts of pages and texts and paragraphs from children's books - mainly classics.  I don't consider it a children's book (I can only think of a few kids I've read aloud to in the past that would sit still all the way through this), but a wonderful adult picture book.

Goodreads:  New York Times best-selling author-illustrator Oliver Jeffers and fine artist Sam Winston deliver a lyrical picture book inspiring readers of all ages to create, to question, to explore, and to imagine.
     A little girl sails her raft across a sea of words, arriving at the house of a small boy and calling him away on an adventure. Through forests of fairy tales and across mountains of make-believe, the two travel together on a fantastical journey that unlocks the boy’s imagination. Now a lifetime of magic and adventure lies ahead of him . . . but who will be next? 
     Combining elegant images by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston’s typographical landscapes shaped from excerpts of children’s classics and lullabies, A Child of Books is a stunning prose poem on the rewards of reading and sharing stories—an immersive and unforgettable reading experience that readers will want to pass on to others.

PICTURE BOOK - Will's Words by Jane Sutcliffe

How William Shakespeare Changed the Way You Talk
Illustrated by John Shelley

2016, Charlesbridge

HC $17.95

40 lovely, thick pages.

Goodreads rating: 4.36

My rating: 5, no question!

Endpapers:  Dark Rust

Setting:  1606 London

1^st line/s:  "Dear Reader:  We have to talk.  I have failed you.  I set out to write a book about the Globe Theater and its great storyteller, William Shakespeare.  About how the man was an absolute genius with words and wove those words into the most brilliant and moving plays ever written."

My comments:  This is more than a book that tells about how many of our everyday word choices and combinations were originally penned by W. S.  There are wonderful explanations included for each and the opportunity to read them in context, which is more-than-excellent.  It also tells of the times, of the theater, of how it all "worked."  You learn lots!  And the illustrations are a blast - there's so much to take in as you look and look at the details.  Great timeline and bibliography included as well.

Goodreads:  When Jane Sutcliffe sets out to write a book about William Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre, in her own words, she runs into a problem: Will's words keep popping up all over the place! What's an author to do? After all, Will is responsible for such familiar phrases as "what's done is done" and "too much of a good thing." He even helped turn "household words" into household words. 
           But, Jane embraces her dilemma, writing about Shakespeare, his plays, and his famous phrases with glee. After all, what better words are there to use to write about the greatest writer in the English language than his very own?  As readers will discover, "the long and the short of it" is this: Will changed the English language forever.

PICTURE BOOK - The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jen Bryant

Illustrated by Melissa Sweet

2014, Eerdmans

HC $17.50

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.53

My rating: 5 FOR SURE! My 2nd favorite book of 2014!

Title Page:  double-page spread, blocks of wood with alphabet prints

Endpapers:: vertical strips of vintage papers collaged in thin stripes

At the end of the book there's a two-page detailed, really interesting timeline, a page-long author's note and a page-long illustrator's note, followed by a page of resources and other sorts of information.

1^st line/s:  (the book begins with this glorious quote) "The man is not wholly evil - he has a thesaurus in his cabin." (J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan; about Captain Hook....)

My comments: This is much more than a biography of Peter Roget.  As an altered book artist and journaler I find the illustrations just magnificent.  They include words as part of the illustrations.  Lists of words; wallpaper of words; thinking boxes and journal pages - different fonts, paining and collage - wonderful, whimsical words, delicious words....it's almost overwhelming.  I've poured over each page, finding all sorts of inspiration for my own journal-making, writing and art.                   WONDERFUL BOOK!  Roget is my new hero (Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet are already on that list)!
     I want a literature circle set of this book for my classroom!

Noah Webster & His Words - Jeri Chase Ferris

Illustrated by Vincent X. Kirsch

Houghton Mifflin Books For Children, 2012

HC/$16.99

32 pages

Goodreads rating: 4.22

My rating: 5

Endpapers: Dark Brown

Title Page: Lines and "feathered" border, open dictionary with wire-rim glasses (nice model)

Illustrations (all pages have a lined border), simple line drawings, deeply colored - lots of squiggles and lines and hatchings....

1^st line: "Noah Webster always kenw he was right, and he never got tired of saying so (even if, sometimes, he wasn't.) He was, he said, "full of CON-FI-DENCE" [noun: belief that one is right] from the very beginning."

Goodreads:  Webster’s American Dictionary is the second most popular book ever printed in English. But who was that Webster? Noah Webster (1758–1843) was a bookish Connecticut farm boy who became obsessed with uniting America through language. He spent twenty years writing two thousand pages to accomplish that, and the first 100 percent American dictionary was published in 1828 when he was seventy years old. This clever, hilariously illustrated account shines a light on early American history and the life of a man who could not rest until he’d achieved his dream. An illustrated chronology of Webster’s life makes this a picture perfect bi-og-ra-phy [noun: a written history of a person's life].

My Goodreads comments:  This is a great biography, focusing on Webster's entire life, not just one portion of it as many children's picture book biographies do.  It is interesting and informative, written in a manner that doesn't talk down to kids and makes Noah seems like a real person, giving insights into his personality (he was an incredible patriot!).  Many words encountered in the book are immediately defined, as in the actual dictionary, which is a nice introduction to young kids and reinforcement for older kids.  I think this excellent biography will be one of my models to help teach my fourth graders how to write a good one themselves.

The Boy Who Loved Words - Roni Schotter

Illustrated by Giselle Potter
Schwartz & Wade Books, 2006
32 pages
Rating: 4.5
Front endpapers: cut-out words on light green
Back endpapers: Glossary of the many scrumptious words italicized throughout the book

Selig was a collector of words. He wrote all the great words he heard on a piece of paper and stuffed it in a pocket, in his sock, under his collar. But when he heard one of his peers call him an "oddball," he had a strange dream that sent him out into the world to find his purpose.

While doing so, he also found love. So upon his return home, still a young man, his parents were terribly happy for him.

Words are "cut" and dropped all over the pages. Lots of great words are italicized throughout the story.

I can think of oodles and oodles of activities to do with this including: class list of LUSCIOUS WORDS, laminate great words and tie by strings to trees around town, word mobiles, make a word potpouri - choose and use....

There's a Teacher's Guide at the Teachers at Random website.

57. Word After Word After Word - Patricia MacLachlan

Katherine Tegen Books, 2010
For: younger middle grades
HC: $14.99
128 pgs.
Rating: Hard to say....great for this word-lover adult, but kids? We'll find out, because I'm going to start the year by reading this aloud and teaching a Patricia MacLachlan author study. That means I have to have it ready for n-e-x-t w-e-e-k!!!

This is a simple, lovely story of a children's writer who shares her love of words with a classroom of kids - and we meet five of them. Friends, each with their own unique qualities and stresses, who meet after school under a lilac bush and discover they love to write - and they CAN write.

Told from the point-of-view of one of the kids, a girl who is sad, whose mother is going through chemo. However, this is NOT a sad book. It's a thoughtful look at the way that kids think, and the way that kids relate to one another