Fun with Wumbers

One of my favorite tinkerers of language is Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I think few people delight in the odd little quirks of the English language in the way that she does, and it always comes out in her writing. Some people cry from the rooftops that texting is going to be the downfall of our language, but Amy Krouse Rosenthal seems to revel in it. Mixing words and numbers is a delightful game, best introduced early as evidenced by her newest picture book.
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6fbDjCGZl0[/youtube]

One of my favorite tinkerers of language is Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I think few people delight in the odd little quirks of the English language in the way that she does, and it always comes out in her writing. Some people cry from the rooftops that texting is going to be the downfall of our language, but Amy Krouse Rosenthal seems to revel in it. Mixing words and numbers is a delightful game, best introduced early as evidenced by her newest picture book.

The book is called Wumbers. Not only is it wri10 by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, it's illust8ed by Tom Lichtenheld. The last time these 2 collabor8ted, they gave us the 1derful Duck! Rabbit! 1ce you start thinking about words cre8ed with numbers, it's hard to stop. In the book, kids make 4ts and 10ts 2 play in. Other kids play pre10nd, wearing 2-2s and drinking tea swee10ed with honey. A purple octopus has orn8 10tacles and 1 guy even has a 2can ta2. In my favorite part, a little girl flies up in the sky holding a balloon, and the balloon seller says, "4give me, 4 this is bel8ed, but it seems once again I have overinfl8ted."

Wumbers makes for a gr8 game even when you're not reading the book. I challenge my daughter to think of wumbers that are not in the book, 4cing her 2 be cre8tive. She still has a 10dency to duplic8 1s that are in the book, but mostly because she's 4got10 all of the wumbers packed in there. Other times we cooper8 to find new 1s. She's fascin8ted by this book that's also a game.

If you've got down the ba6 from reading this, you'll be fascin8ed, too. The book is dedic8ted to William Steig, cr8tor of C D B!, the book that inspired this one, gr8 for more wordplay fun. I'd love to keep cre8ing new wumbers, but I fear I've procrastin8ed long enough.