Max's Words :: Education by Design Store

Customer Reviews

Great Book!

2007-07-16
I love the idea of this book. It's a great way to get early reader's excited about words and even fun for an adult to read too! My son loves this book.

The Word is Mightier than the Reptile

2007-07-03
Most adults buyers of kids' books are book lovers themselves. I can't help but believe that they hope their little ones will internalize their love of words and reading. It's a laudable goal, but not an easy one. Kates Banks, however, succeeds magnificently in transforming the metaphorical power of words into something much more literal!

Banks and the very talented illustrator, Boris Kulikov, begin with three boys: Karl the coin collector, Benjamin the stamp collector, and Max--who can't think of anything to collect. To make matters worse, Ben and Karl refuse to share their collections with Max.

Suddenly, and to the derision of his two friends, Max decides to collect words. Max proceeds slowly but diligently, never reading words bigger than he can digest. With a little confidence, Max moves on to bigger and bigger words, and then to words he doesn't even know! As he embellishes his vocabulary, Kulikov throws in some clever visual puns; the shape and form of the written words reflect their meanings: The word "Baseball" is in the shape of a bat, the "O" in the word "dogs" is a collar, "hungry" is written on paper that has a big bite. "Alligator" and "crocodile" are long words with spikey teeth along their edges, together they form the upper and lower jaws of something one might call a "crocogator."

Through Max's testing of words and word order, Banks and Kulikov also explore the power of syntax: Word order can make a big difference! Max discovers (and we share this through the pictures), that "A Blue Crocodile Ate the Green Iguana," has a different meaning than "The Blue Iguana Ate the Green Crocodile," a difference particularly significant to the iguana and the Croc!

As the book progresses, the increasing energy and scope of the words' power seems inspired by a combination of the old Monsanto "Shrinking Person" ride at Disneyland, the runaway power of "The Sorcerer's Apprenctice," and the dream-becomes-nightmare of "Alice in Wonderland." Max (a playful, curious and therefore fast learner) discovers that with enough words he can write a story.

As Karl and Benjamin discover that the word can be mightier than the sword, they try to ruin Max's story about a young worm with their own animated words. "Karl scrambled for more words. He wanted the crocodle to eat the worn." Fortunately, Max is quicker--he and the worm narrowly escape through a hole, signifying Max's newly won confidence and self-acceptance.

This is a wonderful, well-illustrated, book about how we learn reading, and the power of words combined with a good imagination.

This is a great book for kids!

2007-05-23
I really liked this book. As a teacher, I see lots of instructional posibilities in the classroom with this book. The pictures are great too!

A Great Book

2007-03-12
A great story with wondrful illustrations. Has a good lesson and is fun to read.

Words and More Words

2007-01-02
My daughter got this for Christmas. SHE LOVES it. She is seven years old and thought he was so cool to come up with the idea of collecting words. She was very impressed with the sentences Max made up himself. She wants to share it with her class when they go back to school after xmas break.

Max's Words

2008-04-27
I bought this book because I thought it was cute (the cover intrigued me). I took it to my classroom to share with my lst grade students. They got so excited about it that they thought our class should start a word collection. So I drug out old magazines & newspapers and we began to clip and save the most fascinating words we could find. Then we decided that we should try to invent some sentences just like Max did. It was so much fun! The kids worked together for over an hour for 2 days straight. They came up with several sentences. We posted them in our hallway along with a review of the book. They are so proud! I would highly recommend this book for anyone who has anything to do with children!

Excellent Book!

2008-03-31
Shows how words and reading can be fun! My 4 year old loves the book. I donated a copy to his school's library and the librarian loved it too. Why can't there be more books like this out there for young children?? No bad guys, just fun.

Great story

2008-01-18
My son Max and I enjoyed this story of the youngest and wildest brother of three who insists on creating a collection of words, after his older brothers refuse to share their collections of stamps and money with him. Max and I both enjoyed the fun that comes from the idea of collecting words. A really fun book with great illustrations.

Recipe to become a writer

2007-09-10
I find Max's Words to be an excellent tool for children on how to learn the principles of the structure of a language. The power of this book is that the idea can be adapted to any language. That makes me think that any child using it frequently may become, if not a writer, at least, an avid reader.

Max's Words

2007-08-12
I find this to be a delightful story of a little boy that is looking for something to 'collect' just like his older siblings. They have their coin and stamp collections which they refuse to share, so it's up to the youngster to go out and find something of his own. What better collection is there than words?! As a primary, elementary school teacher, I think Max is right on the money, and hopefully my students will think so, too, when I introduce Writer's Workshop to them with a read aloud of 'Max's Words'.