posted on 03 Apr 2018

Shona, Word Detective by John Agard

You won’t be surprised to hear that the wonderful poet, playwright and children’s author, John Agard, just loves words. So, you’ll also expect Shona, Word Detective to put this love right at its heart – and you are not going to be disappointed. This latest book from publisher Barrington Stoke’s super-readable, dyslexia friendly range is a delightful, stimulating and playful word extravaganza that will give younger readers not just plenty of laughs but lots of really useful information. Agard’s a skilful enough writer not to make the book preachy or worthy – he keeps it fun without being patronising or self-consciously ‘educational’.

Shona already loves her books and she can’t get enough when it comes to new, exciting words. After watching a television programme warning that lots languages are in danger of becoming extinct, Shona decides she wants to become a ‘maverick lexicographer’ just like her new hero, Davina Crystal-Bloomer who heads up LOL (Language Our Lifeline).

The next day at school, Shona tells her teacher about LOL and discovers that Miss Bates knows Davina Crystal-Bloomer personally. The whole class gets recruited into a new project – to create a ‘language nest’ where the pupils will be able to come to school with examples of words from their own diverse backgrounds. Turning them all into ‘word detectives, Miss Bates sends the class off to find new words to bring back and add to their word collection.

Shona talks to her Granny who came originally from Guyana and learns the meaning of ‘matapi’ – a device used by the Amerindinas ‘for straining the poison-juice out of cassava’ – and she resolves to take that word with her the next day and she notes it down in her notebook that will become Shona’s Thesaurus.

Later that evening as Shona’s family watch television they see a representative of LLTB (Less Languages The Better) and Shona is shocked and outraged that someone should be arguing for fewer languages. But next day at school the children all come with words and objects from their diverse backgrounds and there’s a big surprise in store for them – Davina Crystal-Bloomer is there in person!

With her specially trained parrot that has learned to say words that are falling out of use, Davina makes everyone laugh by coming up with all sorts of rude sounding words that the bird knows how to say:

Betwattled……bamboozled……..bumbazed……….quakebottom…..

And then to everyone’s amazement out on stage steps the leader of LLTB! And, it turns out …………….no, I’m not going to tell you; you’ll have to find out for yourself.

This is all great fun and very skilfully written – I learned plenty of things I didn’t know as well as being reminded of the fantastic stories of Anansi the mischievous spider.

Agard’s storytelling is delightfully illustrated by  Michael Broad who brings Shona, her family and her classmates to life in an unfussy way.

This turns out to be Shona’s third outing and so I will need to make sure I get my hands on All Sorts To Make and World and Going Batty. That’s something for me to look forward to.

 

Terry Potter

April 2018