Book Review: Once Upon a Word: A Word-Origin Dictionary for Kids—Building Vocabulary Through Etymology, Definitions & Stories by Jess Zafarris

Once Upon a Word: A Word-Origin Dictionary for Kids—Building Vocabulary Through Etymology, Definitions & Stories by Jess Zafarris shows readers of all ages that the English language is made up of words from different places, events, and periods of time. Each of those words has an exciting story to tell us about where, when, how, and why they came about. It has easy-to-understand definitions and awesome word-origin stories, helping readers understand the history and meaning of English words, improve vocabulary and spelling, and learn to play with language. Explore how weird words like gnome, fun words like zombie, and common words like caterpillar came to exist. Discover why some words sound funnier than others (like cackle, sizzle, and twang) and why some groups of words start with the same few letters (like hydrate, hydrogen, and fire hydrant). 

Once Upon a Word is an accessible and entertaining resource for readers of all ages. I like that it uses the history of words, the building blocks of words, and how different languages have created and continue to change the English language. After the rundown on the building blocks and things that have shaped language starts the actually dictionary part of the book- explaining each word in detail. This is a great tool for gaining a better understanding of favorite or interesting words, but it is not the most entertaining part. I really enjoyed the two sections that follow, which explore food  and music related words. Since food and music are two of my favorite things I found this to be very interesting.  I think that this would be a good classroom or school library resource for middle grade readers and older. However, it might also be helpful to those approaching the high school horrors of standardized tests that seem to be very important to their adults. The understanding of the roots and building blocks of words that are laid out in the beginning of the book can help all readers with their vocabulary and the ability to guess the correct meaning of most words- especially in a multiple choice test. I thought that some of the color and formatting choices really broke up the text on the pages nicely, making the read book as a whole less intimidating to readers. 

Once Upon a Word is a well organized and written resources that will help its readers understand some of the building blocks and influences of the English language while offering some humor and interesting tidbits along the way.