The Word Collector, by Peter H Reynolds, reviewed by Terry Wahrman

Summary: Jerome is a word collector. Jerome collects words he hears or sees or reads and puts them in his notebooks. He catalogs his notebooks. One day, while carrying his notebooks, he dropped them and the words flew all around him. They fell in a jumbled up mess. He never considered putting two differently cataloged words next to each other. Once apart and now together, Jerome made beautiful poetry and songs with his words. “The more words he knew the more clearly he could share with the world what he was thinking, feeling, and dreaming”. He was determined to share his words with the world and threw his collection of words off a mountain top where he saw the children below gather them up. This made Jerome immensely happy.

Straight Talk for Librarians: This book will make a great addition to any classroom. Where learning vocabulary might be an unwanted activity. I would use the book to coax children into learning new words and invent a project for them to take on and reinvent using their new words. I would use it in high school to remind students to use their extensive vocabulary and create a story with words that encapsulates their true emotions.