Independent Reading Level: 2nd - 5th grade
Awards: Parents Choice

Reading Grade Level:‎ K - 3
Parents Choice Gold Award (2006) ( )

Grade 1-4-Schotter blends magical realism with a tongue-tingling narrative to create an ode to the power and purpose of language. Selig is passionate about words-their sounds (tintinnabulating!), their taste (tantalizing!), and the way they moved his heart. An avid word-hoarder, he delights in discovering new terms, recording them on paper scraps, and stowing them in pockets. Unable to comprehend their son's strange predilection, his practical-minded parents worry about his future, and his classmates cruelly add oddball to his collection. After dreaming about a Yiddish Genie who advises him to embrace his passion and seek his life's poipose, Selig embarks on a journey of self-discovery. Feeling weighted down by his vocabulary slips, he climbs a tree and carefully attaches them to the branches. Fantastically and fittingly, several of them blow into the hands of a poet who is struggling for the right adjectives to finish his verse. Selig realizes that his mission is to bestow his word wealth upon others. He tosses out luscious to accentuate a baker's wares, halts an argument with harmony, and invigorates an elderly man with spry. He grows up to find personal fulfillment and even true love. The author shares her own affection for language through the descriptive, lyrical text, italicizing particularly delectable but possibly unfamiliar terms and defining them in a two-page glossary. Potter's folk-art paintings echo the story's whimsy and set the action in an idyllic-looking, early-20th-century past. An inspiring choice for young wordsmiths and anyone who cherishes the variety and vitality of language.

Selig collects words, ones that stir his heart (Mama!) and ones that make him laugh (giggle). But what to do with so many luscious words? After helping a poet find the perfect words for his poem (lozenge, lemon, and licorice), he figures it out: His purpose is to spread the word to others. And so he begins to sprinkle, disburse, and broadcast them to people in need.

I did not like the plot of this book. I felt like it dragged on, and they could have ended the book a lot sooner. I got this book from a public library, and it doesn't just have the E on the spine of the book, it has ES. I tried to look it up, but I couldn't find what it meant. All I know is that this book is not suited for young children. There are tons of words in the book that teachers wouldn't even be able to begin to describe to their students. Honestly, I'm wondering if this book would be best suited for high school students. I'm just having trouble with trying to figure out the point of this book. I did enjoy the ending of the book and how Selig found someone to love who complements him with her music. It was also nice to see on the last page of the book that the two of them were sitting in a tree together and there were three children playing on the grass grabbing words and music notes flying in the air. I can only assume that these children are supposed to be their children.

Despite thinking that this book shouldn't be used in teaching young children, I believe a teacher could come up with a good writing prompt that would go along with this book. The teacher could have the students state and describe the meaning of their favorite words and use these words to write a story about whatever they want. ( )