The Very Inappropriate Word

K-Gr 2—Michael collects words. He enjoys finding new ones on signs, on TV, at baseball practice, and at school. The humorous ink and watercolor cartoon illustrations represent the words graphically-"sudsy" appears in a soap bubble, "slugger" on a baseball, etc., and help to illuminate their meanings. Michael happily collects the words until the day he hears a new one on the school bus. It is depicted as an angry-looking scribbled mess with symbols instead of letters. Michael picks up the word to add it to his collection. His older sister, however, says, "Michael! That is a very inappropriate word!" Unsure, he asks his friend what "inappropriate" means. When "Bad!" is the answer, Michael hides the word in his pocket. Suddenly aware, he hears it in more places. He cannot resist showing it to his friends at school. His kind teacher redirects him to the library and gives him the job of finding different new words. Using stacks of books with well-known titles, Michael happily gathers fascinating words such as "vibrato," "shenanigans," and "nimbus." His collection grows so large, he eventually loses track of the very inappropriate term. The only problem with this book will be in trying to keep children from sharing their own inappropriate words. For a fun storytime, pair this title with Audrey Wood's Elbert's Bad Word (Harcourt, 1988).—Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA