“Words are a lot like people / Each one is awesome / Just as it is,” begins Katherine Davis-Gibbon’s WORDS, a thoughtful, delightful read for very young children still learning the essentials of English.
The emphasis here is on what words do for us. In simple and straightforward prose, Davis-Gibbon emphasizes that words convey our feelings; they can be happy, sad, or even absent when we’re shy or want to hide away. A collection of words expressing strong emotions take the form of a swarm of angry wasps chasing away the speaker. Elsewhere, words can give a hug or exude love, but they also help us to express truth. Davis-Gibbon underlines that it’s just as important to give yourself permission to think about what is true as it is to say it out loud: an important lesson for any young child.
When it comes to the book’s entertainment value, the delight will lie in the hunt for the words. Any child who has just learned the alphabet will surely get a kick out of discovering words hidden in bushes or the limbs of passing dogs. Illustrator Anne Berry’s simple yet touching watercolor illustrations tease letters into the shape of various everyday things—a lizard climbing a tree, a trowel, a bed of flowers. Not all of these are readily apparent, so young children will be entertained (and may even find it challenging) to find them all. With that target audience firmly in mind, Berry’s not above a little gentle potty humor, either.
More than anything else, though, it’s the urge to think and perceive the world as it is that truly elevates this story above the merely engaging. There is little not to like about the book, except for the occasional picture in which the letters are so firmly intertwined in the body of the figure (or object) they constitute that it can be hard to make them out. It took a few seconds, for example, for this writer to apprehend a light bulb as the word “TRUTH,” each letter represented by an item of its attire. This aside, WORDS proves to be a very charming read.
Katherine Davis-Gibbon’s WORDS offers a charming, delightful examination of the meaning, power, and usefulness of words for the preschooler audience.
~Craig Jones for IndieReader