If you've never read any picture books by William Steig, you are missing out. Steig uses loads of lovely big, juicy vocabulary words in his stories, and I have found that rather than be intimidated by them, kids seem to enjoy learning them in the context of a well-told story. An example of such a word, albeit a nonsense one, is "scrabboonit" which appears in the book The Amazing Bone, a wonderful tale about a young pig, Pearl, who discovers and befriends a talking bone. Unfortunately, a fox captures both Pearl and bone with the intent of turning Pearl into a sumptuous supper. The bone, however, discovers the power of the magical words it picked up from a former owner (a witch) and manages to free Pearl. And if you haven't read Steig's Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, you must. One of the elements that gives Steig's picture books such power is his clear understanding of what's important to children: home, magic, love, and the triumph of good over evil.
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