A book I’ve been reading to my 4-year-old lately, in anticipation of her Mimi’s visit from Texas, is The Keeper of Wild Words by Brooke Smith.
The story is about a Mimi, who is a writer, and her granddaughter. They go outside to learn about the wild words in danger of disappearing thanks to Oxford Junior Dictionary‘s decision to remove 100 natural words and replace them with 21st century tech words, primarily.
Brooke Smith isn’t the only writer to mourn the disappearance of these natural words. English poet Malcolm Guite responded with a sonnet, “A Lament for Lost Words” on his blog. My daughter knows that I write poetry too and takes Mimi’s speech very seriously.
When I was reading this book to her before bed the other night, she told/commanded me TO KEEP WRITING.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because if you don’t, the wild words will disappear.”
It took me a minute to register what she was saying. “Do you mean if I’m not writing the words in a poem, you think they will be gone forever?”
“Yes.”
“But what will I do if I’m not writing poems? You know I can’t be writing poems all the time, every day” (unfortunately).
“I’ll save the words for you, Mommy.”
Just like the granddaughter in the story, my daughter has become my “Keeper of Wild Words.”
What a title! At the back of the book, there’s an envelope provided to place the reader’s own wild words. My daughter and I have decided wild words could also be words she’s learning from other books that aren’t used much anymore.
Enter Beatrix Potter. Having never read them myself as a child, I’ve delighted in discovering this world with my daughter. Potter wrote these books in the early 1900s and you can tell. My daughter and I have learned “soporific” and “perambulator” and we try to say them in phrases throughout the day so that we remember their meaning. I knew it was working when she exclaimed at dinnertime: “This meal is so satisfying I think it will have a soporific effect.” (Sometimes she sounds more like a 70-year-old.)
But it’s not only the language that feels strangely fresh. It’s the entire world Beatrix Potter has created where there is real danger and she’s not afraid to name it. Peter Rabbit grows up without a dad because of an “accident” in Mr. and Mrs. McGregor’s garden (see pic below). Does my four-year-old have questions about this? Yes. Does she like Mr. McGregor? No. Does she get scared when she sees him on the page or when I read his lines in a deeper voice? Sometimes (so I don’t do that anymore, and we move through the pages featuring him more quickly).
In teaching our daughter, my husband and I don’t dwell on tragedy, but we name it and move on when appropriate. She is learning about life and, well, loss and death are part of that. I had a lovely visit with a friend the other day who just had a mastectomy. With my friend’s permission, my daughter had the chance to ask her her burning questions about it. My husband has a brain injury from multiple concussions and works as a prison chaplain and so my daughter knows that some people have a tougher time, that life isn’t fair. Some people don’t have homes or families; some people don’t stay married; some people would make great parents but don’t have any kids; some people die far too soon.
Do any other children’s books come to mind that don’t avoid or sugarcoat reality but present it in age-appropriate ways? I’d love to know as I think this is lacking in many children’s books.
Speaking of wild words, I have my own growing list. On and off since 2020, I’ve participated in CV2 (Contemporary Verse 2)’s annual 2-day poem contest. You are given 10 words and have 48 hours to write a poem using all of them. The contest, as well as their 3-word mini practice contests leading up to the big one, has introduced me to some amazing vocabulary:
- nubivagant
- wrest
- insomnolent
- lacuna
- broadside
- peristeronic
- ensorcelled
- pith
- scrubby
- putative
Fun fact: my poem “POP!” published in talking about strawberries all of the time, was a result of a CV2 mini contest using “effervescent,” “barometric,” and “chesterfield.”
Their upcoming 2-day poem contest is this April 19-21 and I can’t wait! Granted, I’m looking after my four-year-old and twin babies on one of the days but inspiration can come amidst chaos, right? Right?
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