fostering a love of words

When Oscar stumbles on a chest one morning, he hopes to open it up to find a great treasure. Instead, when he finally manages to open it, all he finds is a bunch of old words. He pulls one out and looks at it. Fluorescent. What’s he going to do with that? He tosses it aside like it’s nothing.

A moment later, a fluorescent hedgehog appears. And just like that, Oscar realizes the power of a word.

He digs for more words in his treasure chest and finds them, flinging them about. A hairy tree. A grandiose birdhouse. A docile crocodile. He keeps tossing them around until he doesn’t have any left.

He asks a couple of adults for more words, but he gets turned away the first couple of times. Then he asks Louise, who also clearly loves words, and she not only helps refill his chest with a handful of new words, she shows him where to find words of his own.

A Chest Full of Words is a captivating look at the power of words. The story is charming, with lots of heart and whimsy. But I really need to talk about these illustrations. They are absolutely breathtaking. And as part of this beautiful art is more words. The end pages are filled with words that spark imagination and smiles, and sprinkled through the story are more words that can captivate and inspire young minds. Spherical. Languid. Fizzy. Topsy-turvy. Fuchsia. Squishy, Elusive. Velvety.

I remember when I was a kid, learning to read. I fell in love with words, with the way they sounded and the way they came together, and the way they could create a story out of thin air. I was captivated by the magic of words. Reading this book as an adult, I was reminded of that feeling of reading as a kid, of learning the structure of words and all their possibilities. A Chest Full of Words made me fall in love with words again.

I think this would be a beautiful book to share with children, to watch them as the words come to life in these illustrations. These words and ideas can spark a lifetime of conversations about the power of language. But I think it can also inspire the adults who are reading it, reminding them of how words are a treasure at any age. At least, that’s what it did for me.

Egalleys of A Chest Full of Words was provided by NorthSouth Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.