In terms of playing with words and playing with the language, I never really think of what a child would think was funny. And so I don’t think of — it eliminates the problem of condescension ‘cause I’m thinking, “What do I think is funny? What does — just what’s funny period?” And so I think that, you know, probably if I think it’s funny, a child will think it’s funny too.
And there’s just so much of it in the English language. You know, it’s just amazing. We aren’t — we don’t all become Amelia Bedelias because of all the confusion that can happen with all kinds of saying because the English language is, you know, we take it for granted, but it’s just amazing how many different phrases come from all over the world and they’ll come in the English language, they’ll stick for a couple of years or decades or hundreds of years — or fall away if they don’t really work.
So it’s just amazing. I’m just — I found out a word, the word boondock, which sounds — it’s a very — it sounds like a very American word, very, you know, country out in the boondocks. It’s actually a Philippine word. It’s Tagalog, correct? Tagalog word. And it means a mountain. So if you’re out in the mountains. And who would have thought? I think it probably came over here during the Spanish American war. And so the language is very yeasty and it’s a lot of fun playing with it.
And I think playing with the language helps kids as writers because I found that a lot of fourth, fifth, sixth graders who are well past, you know, sort of the classic Amelia Bedelia I Can Read books, they’re well into chapter books, very difficult books, when I talk to them about the character, they laugh harder than first graders or second graders because they really get playing with the language and they really have much more sort of appreciation for the power of the language and what you can do with it and just have fun with it.
