Blog Tour: The Great Dictionary Caper by Judy Sierra, illustrated by Eric Comstock

When I first opened The Great Dictionary Caper, I have to admit to more than a little bit of skepticism as I read the first page: "Words can get bored. They sit in the dictionary, day in, day out. It's time for a break." Then I looked down at the illustrations and I began to really chuckle. Sure enough, there were words like skate, truck, ride, and go escaping the dictionary and heading a word parade. Naturally, the onomatopoeia marching band was at the head of the parade, playing such favorite sound words as clang, tra-la-la, boom, and the not often heard Oom-pah-pah, among others.

Every parade needs a grand marshal and this one is led by that "self-centered one letter word 'I'" and followed by the extraordinarily wonderful 34 letter word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." From then on, Sierra introduces young readers to a veritable parade some of the cleverest wordplay about anthropormorphized literary and linguistic terminology that ever marched through Hollyword:

There are homophones tangoing two by two (I, eye), and even three by three (to, too, two),  antonyms playing hide and seek, action verbs that jump, bounce and somersault, and in an attempt to avoid any "garboil," archaic words marched with a few oldies but goodies from Shakespeare, like the insulting "sweap".

My kiddos love the subtle but humorous nod Sierra pays to one of last year's favorite books Nothing Rhymes with Orange by Adam Rex under words with no rhymes:

It's not always easy to get kids to really pay attention to terminology, no matter how important a teacher/parent might think it is for them to know. Sierra has presented this otherwise not terribly exciting subject with simple but humorous definitions and has even included some terms that are not usually taught until kids are older, such as palindromes and anagrams, which kids usually love once they grasp these concepts.

Complimenting Sierra's premise, Comstock's digitally rendered illustrations, done in a limited palette of orange, olive green, turquoise blue and black really capture the very essence of each word with a playfulness kids will definitely appreciate.

Alas, all parades must come to an end, and so does this one when none other then Noah Webster corrals all the escaped words back into the dictionary. My conclusion: this is a book that is sure to give your young readers a whole new appreciation for what they can find between the covers of a dictionary.

This book is recommended for readers age 4+
This book was provided by Provato Events

Be sure to visit the other stops of this blog tour:
January 12, 2018      Interview      Book Q & A's with Deborah Kalb
January 13, 2018      Interview      ProvatoEvents
January 18, 2018      Review         Hope is the Word
January 19, 2018      Review         Randomly Reading
TBD                          Review          Kid Lit Frenzy