Well Defined: Vocabulary in Rhyme
Salinger defines sixty-four "two-dollar" words, as he calls them, by writing a short poem about each. He personifies words like "aggregate," "lugubrious," and "skeptical," showing meaning through their actions. For example, "mitigate," he claims, "likes to smooth things over.…" Henderson's simple and amusing black-line cartoons further help make the words' definitions come alive. It is a clever little book, but one that is more apt to be used by writing teachers who might share a few of the poems and then assign students to create their own using classroom vocabulary words. --Library Media ConnectionIn a quandary? Feeling petulant? Inclined toward recidivism? Baffled by what any of that means? Michael Salinger is here to offer poetic help, with a collection of poems exploring fifty-one vocabulary-swelling polysyllabic words. Each poem begins with its subject word, personifying it through its meanings ("Credulity doesn't check the facts/ question authority/ or even ask/ if what he's being told is true"), in rhymed lines that evince a casual, prosy organization rather than following a strict meter. The personifications are witty and evocative, and the vocabulary is choice enough that the explorations will be intriguing to veteran users and novices alike. This therefore has potential both as a vocabulary builder and as a model for writing assignments by ambitious young sesquipedalians. Squiggly and energetic thumbnail-sized cartoons decorate most of the pages; a table of contents (which also identifies the part of speech for each featured word) opens the volume, and each word also gets a quick definition in a footnote underneath its poem. --The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books