WORDS WITH WINGS by Nikki Grimes

Grimes, Nikki. Words with Wings. 2013. Honesdale: Wordsong. ISBN 9781590789858.

Nikki Grimes, the 2006 winner of the NTCE Award for Excellence in Poetry for children has added a verse novel to her body of work.  Words with Wings is about Gabby (named after the angel Gabriel), a daydreamer whose mind can’t help catching words that carry her away to worlds all their own.  We follow her through the sadness of her parents’ separation, a move to a new school, loneliness, finding a friend, and eventually finding a way to express her daydreams without getting into trouble (thanks to a special teacher). The contents of the book list 71 poems in two fonts. The poems that tell the story are in a traditional bold font, and the poems that tell us the words that send her daydreaming, are set in a delicate font that suggests weightlessness.  

Grimes uses a variety of forms, but her free verse seems dominant.  Two of my favorites, however, are written in Haiku. 

 

Hope

I hope this new school

has a Cheri who’ll think

daydreamers are cool.

Explain This, Please

Mom names me for a

creature with wings, then wonders

what makes my thoughts fly.

In the poem for which the book is named, you can get a glimpse of the beautiful word craft that has made Grimes so popular. 

 

Words with Wings

Some words

 sit still on the page

 holding a story steady.

Those words

never get me into trouble. 

But other words have wings

that wake my daydreams.

They fly in,

silent as sunrise,

tickle my imagination,

and carry my thoughts away.

I can’t help

but buckle up

for the ride!

One of the important characters in this verse novel is the special teacher she has at her new school who is alert to his students whose minds wander.  Mr. Spicer (named for a real teacher) tries to find ways to capture their creativity and celebrate it.  He is an inspiration to any teacher who finds it a challenge to engage some of their “hard to reach” students.  Gabby’s character is also a sweet reminder of those children who seem lost, but sometimes just need a little more patience to learn the secret that will help them thrive. 

I would recommend this as a classroom read aloud for students in grades three to five.  The variety of emotions in the events of this story are easy for any child to empathize with, since every child has felt sad, lonely, scared, or left out at some time or other.  Following the read aloud, students could write about their own dreams or daydreams.  The dreams could be written on beautiful origami paper and folded into paper cranes or any other winged art to hang as a decoration in the room.  You could also use this book as a spring board for a writing exercise or thesaurus practice.  Students could pick a “flat” word such as “big” and find as many synonyms as possible to creatively enliven that word.  Decorating in a hot air balloon theme to coincide with local hot air balloons festivals in the spring or fall could also set writing creativity aloft. Just like Words with Wings, the sky’s the limit!