Baby librarian Marian and her mommy Margaret review the vociferous picture book The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds.
Marian Reviews The Word Collector
I’m a lot like Jerome–I collect words too! Right now I’ve collected Momma (which is much better than Mommy), Moo, Me, Paci, Please, Yes, Baby, Hey, Bye Bye, Baba, Dada, and Hippity (my stuffed rabbit’s name). Mommy keeps trying to get me to say book, but I’m not ready to collect that word yet.
Jerome collects the words differently than I do, though. He takes one of those pointy pencils Mommy won’t let me have and some crinkly paper that Mommy always takes away once I start nibbling on it and write them down. I didn’t know that’s how pencils and paper worked! Maybe if Mommy let me have pencils and paper I could’ve figured it out. I’m very good at figuring things out.
My favorite part of the book is how many words it has. I don’t know many of the words, but I love listening to Mommy say all those words. That’s the best part of reading!
Margaret reviews The Word Collector
I love this book! Jerome collects all the lovely words he hears, and one day they accidentally get all mixed up, and he discovers poetry! I really love poetry, so this went right to my heart. I also love the moral that words can change people. While it may be a bit conceited, we bookish people all agree that words can make the world a better place, right? And a worse place. Words have power.
This book is also delight to read aloud. Once Marian is older, say 6-8, we can look at all the words Jerome collects and read them together.
I read this book to Marian outside and, as often happens after I read, she was a chatterbox of nonsense words! It’s really adorable to hear her hold entire conversations (in conversational tone even) with not a single word in there. She practices cadence, facial expressions, she even makes hand gestures. It melts my heart every time, and shows the power of reading when so young.