WORD HUNTERS TOP SECRET FILES

 

word-hunters

Educational fun – for some, that’s an oxymoron. So too word play. WORD HUNTERS TOP SECRET FILES turns an oxymoron into a tautology.

Nick Earls and Terry Whidborne’s book is a towering word trade centre, a bazaar for the bizarre origins of words, designed for young readers as a companion to the three fiction titles in the Word Hunter series.

A little like a young readers version of The Inky Fool, Mark Forsyth’s The Etymologicon, WORD HUNTERS TOP SECRET FILES is a fascinating foray into word facts and the phraseology and vernacular that evolves from various forms and fields of human endeavour.

Here, for instance, readers can discover the evolution of the terminology of tennis, the creation of cricket nomenclature, and the beginnings of busking.

Not only is there a plethora of ephemera, euphemism, and general enthusiasm for words, WORD HUNTERS TOP SECRET is part practical manual, an activity book with simple but scrumptious recipes and instructions on how to make personal armour.

And as much as this is a book about the living language of English, it does contain an epilogue of epitaphs, a commemoration of the many words that have been consigned to the scrapheap of extinction. Reading these may start a resolution to resuscitate and resurrect. Most would agree a vocabulary devoid of callipygian is vastly dissipated.

WORD HUNTERS TOP SECRET FILES is not only rich in text but also in texture. The cover is tactile, as are the pages, and the images and illustrations are a perfect accompaniment to the words.

A brilliant stocking filler for nine year olds and up, and not just for word nerds, WORD HUNTERS TOP SECRET FILES by Nick Earls and Terry Whidborne is published by the University of Queensland Press. RRP $19.95.