Young logophile Jerome moves through a deepening relationship with words in Reynolds’ latest.

Jerome, a young boy of color, is a fastidious collector, but rather than collecting bugs or coins or comic books, Jerome collects words. Words that are new to him, words that sound fascinating to him, words that delight him—Jerome copies down his favorites and keeps them organized in scrapbooks. One day, Jerome takes a tumble, and his books of words seem to explode, and clouds of paper fill the page. His collection becomes fantastically jumbled as “words he had not imagined being side by side” suddenly inspire Jerome to make new creations not only to collect, but also to share. Phrases become poems, and poems become songs. Simple words share powerful feelings. Even as he delights in sharing of himself with his burgeoning lexicon, he decides to share his collection as well, releasing it into the wind for others to find and begin their own collections. In his love letter to those who take delight in words, Reynolds elegantly and with almost ironic brevity demonstrates the entrancing meanings and sounds and textures of English words together with uncluttered (if fairly literal) illustrations to capture the beauty of words and the wonder of sharing them with others. (Languages other than English are largely unrepresented.)

Enchanting if monolingual. (Picture book. 4-8)

-Kirkus Review

AR: 2.4

This is a Spanish story about a boy who is in awe of words and the powers they hold. The boy learns the depth of certain words.

This book could be used for primary or intermediate groups. This book is about a little boy who loves collecting words that he finds, but one day while transporting them they get blown away and out of order, and he realizes how powerful his words are. I would love to use this book to introduce vocabulary to my students and explain the importance of words. ( )

Jerome is the word collector he loves to collect words. He Ould even collect words he did not know the meaning of then later on find out what they meant. He collected all kinds of words. On day his words went flying everywhere and got mixed up. Then he saw he could make poems and made songs. Words made Jerome feel wonderful. This is a sweet book that can show students how special words are because we use they every day. ( )