The Keeper of Wild Words

Brook’s grandmother Mimi is a writer “who wove words into everything that mattered”. Brook is making one of her frequent visits to grandma’s house, and, on this occasion, she wants to press her into service to find something memorable for show and tell at school. But Mimi wants Brook’s help, too, as she has been thinking about how some of the words she has savoured in the past are getting away from her.

As Mimi says:

Words disappear if we don’t share them when we talk.

If we don’t write them in our stories.

If we don’t read them in our books.

Armed with a list of some of Mimi’s favourite words, the two go out for a walk over a meadow and into a wood rich with plants, animals, insects, searching for memories and the words used to describe them. A picnic snack includes APRICOTS and is consumed near a bed of fragrant LAVENDER. A flock of STARLINGS flies up into the sky. A dark place under the trees is full of FERNS, and a DOE is resting there. (The words from Mimi’s list are emphasized by the use of uppercase letters as they occur in the story.)

Oregon author Smith explains that the inspiration for this book came from an article she read in which it was mentioned that a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary had removed about 100 words connected with nature and replaced them with terms such as ‘chatroom’, ‘vandalism’ and ‘voicemail’. The poet in her wanted to take a small step to ensure that more traditional words used to describe the natural world were not lost to young readers, not completely supplanted by 21st-century techno speak.

Although once in a while the author strains a bit too hard to be poetic, readers will enjoy these euphonious descriptions of the world Mimi and Brook discover and perhaps be reminded to work on expanding their own vocabularies.

Along the way, Brook picked up an ACORN that fell from

a mighty oak. Big towering oak tree, little nut with a tiny

brown hat, smooth round shell.

She put it in her pocket, to remember.

And:

A gurgling sound was coming from a clearing, light

flickering on a glassy surface. It was a small stream.

A BROOK.

Dancing, sparkling, singing, it knew exactly where it
was going. Joyful thread of water, cutting through the trees.

Brook’s memory of the expedition and the lovely words she and Mimi want to keep alive will be what she shares with her classmates at show and tell.

Madeline Kloepper, an illustrator living in Prince George, British Columbia, introduces readers to a hip-looking grandma with long fly-away hair, sandals and a cloth shoulder bag. Her pig-tailed shadow Brook is happy to accompany grandma Mimi on her walk through nature. The little girl runs ahead, dawdles behind and gleefully shares in the surprises the two find along their way. The rich landscapes executed in mixed media demonstrate a variety of moods. The clear colours of the carefully delineated plants and live creatures, emphasized by the use of bright white ground space, certainly invite readers to feel a part of the experience of the pair’s outing.

Keeper of the Wild Words could be used in a language arts unit for a primary class or in a discussion of the study of the natural world and how it pays to wander with eyes and ears open to appreciate small things that might otherwise pass us by. It would also make for a pleasant one-on-one reading experience. A good workout for both vocabulary and observational muscles.