Well DefinedILLUSTRATED BY Ages: 11–14 Grades: 6–9 Pages: 64 List Price: 16.95 Cover: Hardcover Published: 2/1/2009 ISBN: 1-59078-615-7 ISBN-13: 978-1-59078-615-4 |
Lessons and standardized tests are well known for their focus on vocabulary words that students should know. Terms such as capricious, equivocal, mitigate, and instigate can be baffling and nerve-racking to young adults, especially when they need to demonstrate their knowledge in the classroom or on an exam. Poet Michael Salinger defuses the tension by offering his own tongue-in-cheek definitions that students will surely commit to memory. Giving each word a personality all its own, Salinger creates mini story lines and amusing images, full of wit and irony, that will keep readers chuckling. Cartoonist Sam Henderson's hilarious drawings add to the fun. Reviews"The personifications are witty and evocative, and the vocabulary is choice enough that the explorations will be intriguing to veteran users and novices alike. ... Squiggly and energetic thumbnail-sized cartoons decorate most of the pages; a table of contents (which also identifies the part of speech for each featured word) opens the volume, and each word also gets a quick definition in a footnote underneath its poem." "Salinger, a performance poet, offers short, funny and readable poems in this slim volume, which aims to help students with vocabulary words often found on standardized tests. ... Adding to the humor are Henderson’s—creator of the Magic Whistle comic book series—simple line illustrations. ... The poems are as well-intentioned as they are well-written." |
