“When I started to write those two books, I don’t think consciously I did it as an educational tool. But I think because I’m an educator, the educational tools slipped in. I didn’t intend to write them as alliteration books, but the first line came to me, ‘One summer Sunday, a slug slithered’ I can’t remember exactly and I thought, “That’s a great way of doing it. That’s a great way of introducing children to alliteration,” and using incredible vocabulary as a fun way to write and to read. And so the first two books were alliterative books.”
“And I do like writing alliterative books. I have great fun writing them, because I get my thesaurus out. I have to find a word that begins with that letter that will say what I want to say. It’s such good fun. And as I’m reading in my thesaurus, I’m finding other words. I’m finding words that I hadn’t even thought of for years and years and years. So it’s a great expansion of my vocabulary, as well as the child’s vocabulary.”
“I think in those books there are probably some harder words than I would normally use in a picture book, but I am a great believer in children expanding their vocabulary. But expanding their vocabulary not because a teacher stands up in front of them and teaches them that vocabulary; but because they read it in a context, so that they absorb the vocabulary. They may not know what “shantung” means. Shantung is in Some Smug Slug. But, my goodness, you know, they work it out; because it’s shiny like shantung. So, shantung naturally must be a shiny material. It must be something like silk. And then, hopefully, they’ll go to a dictionary and look it up and find out what shantung really is. And never again in their life, hopefully, will they forget what shantung is. I think it’s a wonderful way to expand vocabulary.”
