Star Sailor, the Story of Words

Written by Sara Cassidy

Illustrated by Julie McLaughlin

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-3663-1 

40 pp.

Ages 6–8

August 2025 

 

Where would we be without words? With a few letters, or sometimes a lot of them, words either alone or with others can inspire, inform, entertain, emote, and connect. They help us communicate that which we need to share, and to learn, and so much more. Their story is one of endowment, giving readers and listeners the bounty of their wealth, and empowerment.

From Star Sailor, the Story of Words, written by Sara Cassidy, illustrated by Julie McLaughlin

Sara Cassidy begins with an introduction to what words are and how words arise, including the titular "star sailor" which is an astronaut. She discusses how words can be very old while others can arise daily. (Did you know that every day at least ten English words are spoken for the first time? [p. 4]) Sara Cassidy also talks of words coming from sounds that they imitate (e.g., hum), from the combination of words (e.g., bedroom), including to form portmanteaus like "hangry," and from sharing common characteristics (e.g., the ribs of an umbrella and our body's ribs).  

From Star Sailor, the Story of Words, written by Sara Cassidy, illustrated by Julie McLaughlin

There are multiple pages of the geographical and cultural origin of words, whether it's cheddar named after a village in England, and Dalmatians originating in Dalmatia, Croatia, or those arising from languages of First Peoples, like canoe, skunk and the cayenne pepper, and from foreign languages (e.g., patio, glitch, and sauna). Words can be built from roots, prefixes and suffixes, and they can be modified as needed. With all this information shared in a snappy presentation, Sara Cassidy still acknowledges that sometimes words have arisen by mistake, that they've arisen without our understanding of their origins, and that sometimes words need to be retired when they become inappropriate or obsolete. There's a lot to know about words, but Sara Cassidy breaks it down into manageable chunks, which will help inspire new lexophiles.

From Star Sailor, the Story of Words, written by Sara Cassidy, illustrated by Julie McLaughlin

Sara Cassidy, who has written everything from picture books (e.g., Helen's Birds, 2019) and early readers (e.g., The Great Googlini, 2018) to middle-grade fiction (e.g., A Boy Named Queen, 2016) and hi-lo YA (e.g., Skylark, 2014), gives us an illustrated non-fiction book about lexicology, the study of the form, meaning, and use of words. Just like words, it is informative, creative, inspiring, and definitely entertaining. And with Julie McLaughlin's illustrations, Star Sailor, the Story of Words is also colourful and playful.

 

Julie McLaughlin, who illustrated the award-winning Why We Live Where We Live (Kira Vermond, 2015), complements Sara Cassidy's light-hearted approach to an involved topic with her digital artwork that is vibrant and whimsical, inclusive and detailed. Beyond the text, there are many information elements to parse out of Julie McLaughlin's illustrations. Whether it's her depictions of onomatopoeia or her use of LEGO as building blocks for words, Julie McLaughlin keeps everything informative in a playfully enlightening way. 

I love a book that celebrates words and how they work. Because language is always evolving, Star Sailor, the Story of Words gives readers the basics of how words come to be and come to change, helping young people to understand the role words play in culture and how all of us have and will continue to be a part of that. 

The Gift of Words

Written and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds

Orchard Books (Scholastic)

978-1-339-00034-3 

40 pp.

Ages 4–8

October 2025 

 

While most of Canada still hasn't seen snow since last winter, and many are still ramping up their decorations and party plans for Halloween, there will be some who are starting to think about the winter holiday season. Jerome, Peter H. Reynolds's lexicographer from The Word Collector (2018), is inspired to collect some holiday words, sure that he will find words of hope and of joy that he might share with those he loves. What he finds is surprising.

From The Gift of Words, written and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds

With his bright yellow notebook and accompanied by his dog Ekko, Jerome checks out words posted throughout his town. Words like "Buy" and "Sale" and "Low Low Prices" do not inspire the good feelings he'd hoped to find. 

These words left Jerome feeling cold.

From The Gift of Words, written and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds

When he looks beyond the shops, he finds even more distressing words. There's the newsstand where headlines scream about war, poverty, and disasters. And the people he encounters are demanding and hating on the weather and frustrated with others.

 

Jerome's solution is to share inspiring words rather than find new ones. After all, he is a curator of words. So, finding a joyful assortment, he packs up several large bags and pulls them on his sled to the downtown park. There he invites others to join him in decorating a tree with positive words and messages.

 

A word collector's tree.

A tree of hope.

A tree of dreams. A tree of wishes. 

 

From The Gift of Words, written and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds

Soon the tree is festooned with words of positive actions like "Smile" and "Listen," and of feelings like "Joy," as well as messages like "We can make more light together" and "Together we can." With that tree, with those words, and with his community, Jerome is able to share and help others participate in the gift of words.

 

Peter H. Reynolds has always be a fabulous patron of goodness, inspiring young readers with his picture books that promote self-expression (Happy Dreamer, 2017), love (All We Need Is Love and a Really Soft Pillow!, 2023), empowerment and activism (Say Something!, 2019), creativity (The Dot, 2023), and so much more. With The Gift of Words, Peter H. Reynolds not only promotes a lexicon of heartfelt words and messages, but he also makes us stop and think about the unpleasant communications with which children are bombarded daily. Sadly, there is much of this troubling content, especially during the holidays when commercialism and selfishness abound. Thankfully, Peter H. Reynolds addresses it with a lover of words and that child's pursuit of finding joy in the season. 

From The Gift of Words, written and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds

Still, the overall feeling of The Gift of Words is one that uplifts. It's one of community and positivity. And Peter H. Reynolds gives us all the children and community participating in making things right. Everyone has the opportunity to be included and to contribute. And all you see is joy in their faces and in their activity. Peter H. Reynolds gives us colour and kinship through his characters and his whimsical tree of hope, dreams, and wishes.

 

Get your students and children in the right holiday spirit with a reading of The Gift of Words and thinking about their own inspiring holiday words—Scholastic has a couple of activity sheets here to help—before the holiday season starts, and the toy and tech commercials begin to bombard them. Help them find the goodness within their community and their place in contributing to it. Help them make this holiday season one of heartfelt sentiment that might sustain them throughout the year.

Activity sheets available for The Gift of Words at Scholastic (https://www.scholastic.com/site/peter-reynolds.html)

Poem in My Pocket

Written by Chris Tougas

Illustrated by Josée Bisaillon

Kids Can Press

978-1-5253-0145-2

24 pp.

Ages 4-7

June 2021

 

Gone are the days when poetry was the amusement only of romantics and the learned. With poet laureates and spoken word artists becoming part of the vernacular, everyone should feel comfortable to carry poems in their pocket and be inspired to share them. But what if a poem escapes before you're ready?

From Poem in My Pocket by Chris Tougas, illus. by Josée Bisaillon

Before Chris Tougas's story really begins, readers will see a child composing text, their earlier efforts discarded on crumpled papers littered around them. As they walk away, the finished poem, folded in a back pocket, begins to edge its way out of the ripped bottom. Witnessed by their companion, a white chicken, the child soon realizes that the words and thoughts, emotions and rhymes have flung themselves out into the world, scattering across

landscapes of colourful homes and businesses, into the sky and across a wild setting of cacti and yucca. 

From Poem in My Pocket by Chris Tougas, illus. by Josée Bisaillon

With language as colourful as their surroundings, the child tries to retrieve the letters, some mixed up into nonsense words, others forming playful puns and most elusive to their efforts to retrieve them.

Scribbled thoughts were scattered–

there were letters here and there.

Mixed-up words were whipped about

and mingled in midair.

From Poem in My Pocket by Chris Tougas, illus. by Josée Bisaillon

When the child does finally gather some words up, they try to recreate the verse but are unable to do so before the words are sowed into the soil with rain to germinate into something even grander.

From Poem in My Pocket by Chris Tougas, illus. by Josée Bisaillon

The letters and words of this child's creative imaginings may have escaped into the world but Chris Tougas shows us that how fortunate that accident truly was. The child may be bereft initially at having lost the structure of their poem, but the search to retrieve the bits and pieces carries them to many locations where the words play and inform and enrich. With their exodus, they have fostered the beginnings of new poetry in the form of a poetree. 

 

Though illustrator Josée Bisaillon has given us a South American flavour to the story, as hinted with the llamas, vegetation and food, this could be the story of an aspiring poet anywhere. The vibrancy of her digitally-rendered artwork carries the reader through communities of busyness into the quiet of the wild, manifesting the very nature of poetry. It can be solemn or angry, bright or clouded. It can speak to and about people, animals, plants or intangibles like emotions. The words may be the basis for the poetry but the creator's originality to mix and manipulate, sculpt and express gives it its unique form. 

 

When National Poetry Month comes around next April, get your own poem into your pocket and share it with the world. It doesn't have to be your own, though that would be cool. It's the act of sharing that inspires.

The Word Collector

Written and illustrated by Peter Hamilton Reynolds

Orchard Books (Scholastic)

978-0-545-86502-9

40 pp.

Ages 4-8

January 2018

Kids love collecting things: shells, stones, coins, marbles, stuffies. Like most, collecting starts quite naturally, one here, another there, and soon the collection grows.  What they do with that collection is as variable as the items collected.  The lovely Jerome of The Word Collector takes a unique perspective on his collecting and one to which all collectors should aspire.

Jerome loves picking up words wherever he finds them: those he hears, words he sees and some he reads.  Why he is drawn to a word ranges from those that grab his attention because of their sounds or their meaning.  Regardless he amasses quite a collection of words which he needs to organize.  But while transporting a colossal stack of books and boxes of his organized words, he slips and they tumble into a chaotic mess.  But Jerome sees beauty in the unusual combinations of words which he translates into poetry and music and by expressing to others.

From The Word Collector 

by Peter Hamilton Reynolds

By recognizing the profound impact his words can have on how others think, feel and dream, Jerome expands on sharing his growing collection.

Jerome 

had no words 

to describe how happy 

that made him.

Squirrelling away a collection of treasures brings a certain joy but Peter H. Reynolds recognizes that a shared collection is a better collection.  No longer is the collection the realm of the individual but instead it becomes part of a community of aesthetes who appreciate the collection's elements in the myriad of ways.  The illustration of countless and diverse children grabbing words like "honor", "resilience", "hope" and "promise" supports Peter H. Reynolds' message of appreciation and creativity and empathy. Words are powerful and all the more for being shared in thoughtful texts like The Word Collector and illustrated with cheerful artwork of Jerome and others amongst the fluttering murmurations of words.

I'll leave the final words to author-illustrator Peter H. Reynolds whose own words inspire readers to more.

From endpapers for The Word Collector 

by Peter Hamilton Reynolds

Gabby, Wonder Girl

Written by Joyce Grant

Illustrated by Jan Dolby

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

978-1-55455-384-6

32 pp.

Ages 5-7

September 2016

Joyce Grant and Jan Dolby’s little Gabby, of earlier books Gabby (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2013) and Gabby, Drama Queen (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2013), is taking on the world again, this time to solve a mystery of a photograph through questioning.

When Gabby’s friend Roy becomes engulfed in a pile of question marks that he’s released from her magic book–the one that usually just releases a multitude of letters–the two characters become super sleuths, Wonder Girl and Super Roy, on the trail of the person in the black-and-white photograph Gabby discovers in her backyard.  Using letters from the book and the question marks, Gabby creates the wonder-ful “Who?” that helps them realize the girl in the photo is Mrs. Oldham, her neighbour.  But the two can’t find her and have to amalgamate a “w” (wafting in the wind), “h” (half-hidden in a hammock), “e” (in the electric car), “r” (resting on a race track), and another “e” (on Roy’s elbow) with one of the ubiquitous question marks to locate the older woman in the apple tree!  With some reorganization of letters and a slithery snake, the question of “how?” they can get her out of the tree and free her to make a proffered apple pie is solved!

From Gabby, Wonder Girl 

by Joyce Grant, illus. by Jan Dolby

Joyce Grant’s cutie pie shows off her inquisitiveness and invention with gusto and creativity.  Who knew learning to use questions could be so much fun?  With a simple story, Joyce Grant offers very young readers an introduction to letters of the alphabet while manipulating them into words that provide the basis for questions and simple words.  Those of us more proficient in reading know of the versatility of letters to create new words and worlds but, for the very young, Gabby, Wonder Girl will be a revelation in learning housed in an unassuming but entertaining format.  No need to learn about letters from a standard A-B-C book when you have Gabby.  And Jan Dolby makes sure that Gabby, Wonder Girl (as she did in the earlier Gabby books) is a fun read of bright colours and squiggly lines and quirky details like a garden gnome, hedgehogs, butterflies and yards of letters.  Gabby really is a red-haired wonder girl in both language and action, and Roy plays superbly as her masked sidekick.  

From Gabby, Wonder Girl 

by Joyce Grant, illus. by Jan Dolby

Chidlren will love Gabby Wonder Girl, as they have Gabby and Gabby, Drama Queen, but parents and teachers will enjoy helping them experience Gabby’s learning opportunities in the fun word activites and games as well as drawing lesson that Joyce Grant and Jan Dolby provide at the end of the book.  There’s even a Gabby teachers’ guide that can be accessed online at http://joycegrantauthor.com/free-teachers-guide-gabby.  Gabby, Wonder Girl is a big package of learning in a small but bright little marvel of a book.

Gabby

Written by Joyce Grant

Illustrated by Jan Dolby

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

978-1-55455-250-4

32 pp.

Ages 3-6

January 2013

Look at this little cutie!  Could it be a junior Pippi?  No, this little one is Gabby and she is much more grounded and responsible, although still imaginative.

This sweet little girl is responsibly tidying up her room of its toys and books when a falling book deposits its letters every which way but inside the tome.  Fortunately, the very clever letters find their way to appropriate settings: a C on the carpet, an A on an armchair, a T on the table.  And by using those three letters, Gabby creates a very funky CAT.  Then, by retrieving different letters, Gabby is able to feed the CAT.  But when the letters B-I-R-D come together and mayhem ensues, Gabby puts her letter-building skills to work and makes things P-E-R-F-E-C-T (my word, not hers).

Joyce Grant's light-hearted text may demonstrate the fun to be had with building words but with Jan Dolby's cutie Gabby and the joyous letters, the story is more than an alphabet lesson.  Letters become toys with which to play, bend, imagine, build and delight.  They're fun! I dare any child to read this book and think that they are being taught about the alphabet and vocabulary building. And teachers and parents will love the joy that Gabby exudes putting her letters together.  With the "Fun Gabby Activities" put together by author Joyce Grant and illustrator Jan Dolby at the end of the book, children can learn how to draw Gabby, make ribbon words or play a memory game.  There is even more fun to be had at the author's website http://joycegrantauthor.com/ 

I recommend that young readers open the toy box that is Gabby (the book, not the girl) and play with the action-figures called letters.  By bringing learning into the realm of play, Gabby will more than meet expectations, learning and otherwise.