Yesterday was the first day of attendance for students at my elementary school.
What an exciting time - the great adventure of learning stretching before them - new backpacks, new pencils, new books! So many new books - composition books, workbooks. And in my library, there are boxes of new books!
I love books (another good trait for a librarian). I especially love new books. I love how they feel and smell and look. The boxes in my library held thin books, thick books, tall books, short books - books about eggs, dos, frogs, turtles, dragons, boys and girls, old and young. So many worlds to explore and new ideas to ponder and all in the pages of books.
One of my favorite books is a dictionary. A good dictionary should include at least a brief history of each entry - an explanation of how a word came into existence. In researching the word book, I found that it derives from the Old English work bōk meaning beech probably because ancient Germanic peoples wrote on strips of beech wood. When I looked in my well used dictionary, I found pressed between its pages a leaf picked by son many years ago as we explored our yard, something he loved to do as a toddler. So, books can contain memories, too!
Memories - Word Joy!
In my book - Book leaves form trees - trees of knowledge, trees of memories. Sit beneath them. Climb them! Treasure them! Remember them!
Sad to say, summer is drawing to a close - at least on the school calendar. Here in the south, summer on the weather calendar lasts much longer. In honor of lazy, summer days gazing at clouds:Pat Mora’s “Cloud Dragons” What do you see
In the clouds so high?
What do you see in the sky?
Oh, I see dragons
That curl their tails
As they go slithering by.
What do you see
In the clouds so high?
What do you see? Tell me, do.
Oh, I see caballitos*
That race the wind
high in the shimmering blue.
*little horses
from Confetti: Poems for Children
Pat Mora promotes “book joy”, connecting all children to books.
In my book . . . Slithering dragons and a shimmering sky equal “word” joy!
AND
In my book . . . Dragons are special. I’ve become fascinated with dragons especially those of Donita K. Paul (The DragonKeeper Chronicles). One of her characters is a librarian , Librettowit - what a great name for a librarian! Anyplace that has no libraries, no bookstores, no institutions of higher learning is considered uncivilized and wild to our [Librettowit].
from Dragonquest
I love words - a good thing for a librarian. For the last few days I have been reading around the blog world about the new words accepted for inclusion in the 2007 copyright date of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.My favorite new word is ginormous, officially defined as “extremely large: humongous”. My favorite user of ginormous is George, host of HGTV’s “What’s With That House?”.
English is a living language. Growing. Changing.
Words come. Words go.Word Joy!
In my book . . . A dictionary is a great source for Word Joy!
