THE WOMBATS GO WILD FOR WORDS

A passel of wombats transform a community with their sophisticated vocabulary.

Evergreen Forest is “very nice and very ordinary”; some residents, like the little duckling draped glumly over a log on the opening page, might say it’s “rather dull.” The duckling perks up when a trio of wombats “with words on their minds” come tripping along the path. Describing themselves as “word-loving,” the wombats tell the duckling that “words are…‘ESSENTIAL!’ ‘MAGNIFICENT!’ ‘TRANSFORMATIVE!’” The duckling watches and learns as the wombats help animals who use regular words such as thirsty and tired spice up their vocabularies with alternatives: parched and exhausted. The duckling is therefore well equipped to lead her own family from hungry and super hungry to peckish and ravenous, earning herself the title of “honorary word wombat” by book’s end. Nichols contributes friendly cartoon personae for Ferry’s characters, placing them against a woodsy backdrop. The compositions are minimally detailed, with a small blue slug accompanying the duckling and offering little ones a seek-and-find game on most pages. The wombats’ “wonderful words” are set in attention-getting display type; they literally fill the air as the denizens of Evergreen Forest join the word celebration in a conga line. As plots go, it’s pretty thin, but young listeners may well come away ready to seek out some new words to love and, inspired by the closing “duck-tionary,” to fill their own lexicons.

A merry outing for young wordsmiths.