Max's Words (Max's Words #1)

Both clever and funny, Banks's ("And if the Moon Could Talk") inventive picture book features literal and rambunctious word play. Max's brothers, Benjamin and Karl, each have impressive collections (stamps and coins, respectively). They laugh at Max when he decides to collect words. Kulikov's ("Morris the Artist") clever illustrations feature Max's hundreds of words in different colors and fonts, sprinkled across the pages like confetti (at one point the boy is literally knee-deep in them). When Max's collection grows too large for his desk, he begins separating words into piles and realizes that, "when [he] puts his words in different orders, it made a big difference." (Writing ""A blue crocodile ate" "the green iguana"," he discovers, is very different from writing ""The blue iguana ate a green crocodile".") When Max, with his hedgehog hair and thoughtful expressions, starts to write a story of his own about a worm and a crocodile, the real fun begins. Benjamin and Karl, always pictured as stuffy banker types with slicked-down hair and wearing vests, add sentences so the crocodile will eat Max's worm hero, and Max must race to find a sentence that will save his invented character. Banks's economically told tale brims with wit, and Kulikov's splashy illustrations easily keep the story Max writes from being confused with the overall plot. Readers and writers alike will enjoy the linguistic fun in this nearly word-perfect book. Ages 4-8. "(Aug.)" Copyright 2006 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.

PreS-Gr 2 Max -s two older brothers are serious collectors: Benjamin saves stamps and Karl keeps coins. The youngest boy decides to accumulate words. He carefully selects them from newspapers and magazines, cutting out and sorting them by category: colors, foods, small ones, big ones. He copies entries from the dictionary onto pieces of paper and adds them to his mounting collection. It doesn -t matter if coins or stamps are moved around, but words can be arranged and rearranged to create stories. Even though his siblings won -t share pieces of their collections, Max gives away words and the three boys devise a short story together. Imaginative, softly colored illustrations reveal the gathered words scattered all over the pages. They are fine examples of concrete poetry: -HUNGRY - has a chunk bitten out of it; -ALLIGATOR - has teeth and an eye peering from the R; -BASEBALL - is printed in the shape of a bat. The text is set in a variety of styles and sometimes curves around the piles of Max -s collection. This tale pays homage to the written word and may get children thinking about cutting and pasting their own stories or creating concrete poetry." -Maryann H. Owen, Racine Public Library, WI" Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

"Brims with wit. Readers and writers alike will enjoy the linguistic fun in this nearly word-perfect book." —Starred, Publishers Weekly

"Fine examples of concrete poetry. This tale pays homage to the written word." —Starred, School Library Journal

"Kids are naturally inclined to collect things, and the idea of accumulating something intangible in this delightful homage to storytelling will intrigue them. In a word: captivating." —Booklist