The Boy Who Loved Words [Hardcover]

Roni Schotter (Author), Giselle Potter (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2006 | Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up

Words. Selig collects them, 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.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

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.-Joy Fleishhacker, School Library Journal
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From Booklist

Gr. 2-4. Some people collect shells or stones; young Selig collects words. Whenever he hears a new one he likes, he jots it down on a slip of paper and stuffs it into a convenient pocket, a sock, a sleeve, or a hat. When you're a kid, such eccentric behavior doesn't go unnoticed, and soon his classmates have given him a new name, "Wordsworth," and a new word to add to his collection, oddball. Ouch! But with the help of a friendly genie, who calls him "Voidsvoith, a lover of voids," Selig finds his life's purpose and romance, to boot. Potter's signature naive-style art is light and comical, while Schotter's words are a lovely celebration of the power and the music of language. A glossary of Selig's favorite words--from aflutter to windmill--adorns the book's endpapers. Michael Cart
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 40 pages
• Publisher: Schwartz & Wade; First edition. edition (March 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375836012
• ISBN-13: 978-0375836015
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 0.4 x 10.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Roni Schotter is the award-winning author of 28 books for children, including picture books and story picture books for middle readers, as well as middle-grade and young adult novels. Three more of her books will be coming out in the next couple of years. Her books are concerned with imagination and its power and the extraordinary courage of children who think for themselves and "dare to reach out to the larger world."

Born in New York City, Roni Schotter lived for a time in Brooklyn, New York, then moved to the state that had the smallest piece on her jig-saw puzzle map--Rhode Island. There she learned to love johnny cakes and the sea.

She never knew she would grow up to be a writer, but she knew that she loved words--their mystery, meaning and power. She was shy and spent a good amount of time watching and listening to the world, using her imagination to make sense of what she saw and heard. Grown up and an author now, she still does the same thing. Like a detective, she listens, looks and sniffs the world, then writes about whatever excites or puzzles her--in her notebook. Daydreaming, she uses imagination to create her many stories.

Ms. Schotter's books have won various awards, including the Parents Choice Award (for The Boy Who Loved Words and Captain Snap and the Children of Vinegar Lane), the Hungry Mind Review Award (for A Fruit and Vegetable Man), and the Washington Irving Children's Choice Award (for F is for Freedom and Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street.) Dreamland and A Fruit and Vegetable Man were cited as Washington Irving Honor Book Awards. In 1991 Ms. Schotter received the National Jewish Book Award for Hanukkah! Passover Magic was cited by the National Council of Teachers of Social Studies as a "Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies." Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street was cited by the National Council of Teachers of English as a "Notable Children's Trade Book in Language Arts." Her first book, the young-adult novel, A Matter of Time, was made into an ABC After School Special and won an Emmy Award. Several other books have been adapted for the stage by Stages Theatre Company--Hopkins, Minn.

Many of her books have received starred reviews in School Library Journal, including The Boy Who Loved Words, Mama, I'll Give You the World, and Captain Snap and the Children of Vinegar Lane and Dreamland (also cited by the Child Study Assoc. and named as an Honor Book for the Irma Simonton Black Award by Bank Street College of Education). About Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street, SLJ said, "Schotter offers blocked young writers some savvy advice . . .[in a] fluently told tale." About The Boy Who Loved Words, SLJ said, "Schotter blends magical realism with a tongue-tingling narrative to create an ode to the power and purpose of language. An inspiring choice for wordsmiths and anyone who cherishes the variety and vitality of language,"

In the past, Ms. Schotter worked as a children's book editor for various publishers. She has also taught writing at Queens College, C.U.N.Y., at Manhattanville College, and privately. She has been a guest speaker at Vassar College's Summer Institute in Children's Publishing, and at annual conferences of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

These days, she does a good deal of speaking in schools to children--fellow writers--about the art and craft of writing and the importance and pleasure of using their imagination to tell their own stories.

Roni Schotter was born in New York City and grew up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. She attended Carnegie Mellon University and graduated from New York University with a B.A. in English. She lives in a small village north of New York City with her husband, a playwright/lyricist and professor. She has one son, Jesse, who loves writing and reading as much as she does.

Visit Roni at http://www.ronischotter.com/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Could be considered a primer for future SAT vocab tests, May 15, 2006

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Boy Who Loved Words (Hardcover)

My favorite word is "moot". It fulfills all the necessary requirements of a favorite word. It is fun to say. It is fun to slip into a conversation. And when you pair it with the word "point" (as in "moot point") it becomes doubly amusing. I tell you all this because as much as I love my word, I never thought that I had collected it. I remembered it, sure, but collected? Who collects words? How would that even work? The answer comes in the form of Roni Schotter's newest picture book sensation, "The Boy Who Loved Words". A tribute to the beauty of words (to say nothing of the people who employ them) the book utilizes Schotter's storytelling and Giselle Potter's wholly recognizable style to tell the tale of a boy and his penchant for ear-pleasing assonance.

Now there once was a boy named Selig who had two dual loves. First of all, he loved words. He loved how they sounded in his ears and fell off the tongue. Second, he loved collecting. And what better to collect than the thing you love best? Problem was, Selig started getting bogged down by the sheer weight of the words he carried with him. One day, after receiving a dream telling him to find his purpose in life, Selig goes off into the world. He hasn't gone far before he starts pinning the words in his pack onto the branches of the nearest tree. Before long a poet stops by and through sheer accident happen to pluck exactly the word he needs from the wind-swept tree's branches. Suddenly, Selig knows what he was born to do. What good are words if they sit around unused? By lobbing the right words in the right direction, Selig is able to improve the fortune of others. And by locating a gal with as great a gift for music as he has for syllables, Selig is perfectly content thereafter.

Can I be forgiven for thinking this book was a non-fiction biography when I first picked it up? It kind of looks like one, doesn't it? Even after reading a couple of pages I was convinced that this book was some kind of picture book retelling of a real poet's life. Yeah, not so much. Schotter, best known before now to my mind for, "Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street" has tapped into an interesting idea here. Words. The playthings of poets, writers, and critics alike. I'll confess that this book can be seen as an acquired taste. Some kids will need to take some time so as to fully understand what it is that Schotter is saying here. As she deftly mixes a kind of magical realism with her otherwise realistic plotline, "The Boy Who Loves Words", is going to resonate best with those kids that already understand how cool words can be. They'll be the ones who flip to the back of the book and devour greedily the Glossary of Selig's favorite words sitting there. The story is certainly amusing, but unless the reader has a clear sense of how cool words can be, it may well fly over their heads.

Giselle Potter was an ideal illustrator to pair with Schotter on this tale. Once you've seen Potter's work, you don't forget it. Moreover, she's a perfect complement to the author's gentle loonyness. The words in this book are actual printed scraps that float and fly around Selig's head like so many beautiful butterflies, just begging to be caught. I was more than a little intrigued by the Rabbi genie that appears to Selig in a dream. Scotter and Potter (saying their names together fast) between them have placed this book in a kind of Lower East Side New York (or perhaps it's Brooklyn). If Selig is Jewish then of course the genie would be speaking with a Yiddish accent. I don't know exactly when or where the book is taking place, but wherever it is it makes for an enjoyable ride.

Though not a book for everyone, "The Boy Who Loved Words" is a contemporary up-and-coming writer title. Which is to say, future wordsmiths will find comfort in Selig's tale and maybe be convinced to start collecting their own eclectic terms. In Selig's own vocabulary you can label this book savory, full of gusto, truly luscious, and tremendously spry.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My 2 year loves to use all of the words!, August 26, 2006

By 

Angeline C. Jewell - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Boy Who Loved Words (Hardcover)

As both a middle school English teacher and the mother of two children (34 months and 14 months), I loved this book...at this point I have read it to my son about 30 times in a row because he is fascinated with it. Selig uses great words to ellaborate on his thoughts, feelings, and actions. This book has enhnaced my son's vocabulary (he used the word tintabullating the other day) and my sixth graders also throw some of the words around. Along with the great words comes a great story with a rich plot, which is not always the case with children's books. The illustrations could be better, but I love the way the words are all over the pages.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Big Words, January 9, 2007

By 

Nicole Perry "Mrs Perry" (Boca Raton, Florida) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Boy Who Loved Words (Hardcover)

As a teacher I purchased this book for use in my fourth grade classroom. I would have to say that this book utilizes some mighty big words. However I also feel that it it is great for vocabulary development.