Once Upon a Word

Where do words come from?―Learn new words by understanding their stories.

“ Once Upon a Wordmakes learning new words fun and efficient. Jess Zafarris has written a book that is accessible to kids and educational enough for adults. Every parent and educator should keep a copy for engaged minds on hand.” —Jordan Rosenfeld, author ofHow to Write a Page Turner

The English language is made up of words from different places, events, and periods of time. Each of those words has an exciting story to tell us about where, when, how, and why they came about. Once Upon a Word is packed with easy-to-understand definitions and awesome word-origin stories. Here, you can understand the history and meaning of English words, improve your vocabulary and spelling, and learn to play with language.

Explore how weird words like gnome, fun words like zombie, and common words like caterpillar came to exist. Discover why some words sound funnier than others (like cackle, sizzle, and twang) and why some groups of words start with the same few letters (like hydrate, hydrogen, and fire hydrant). There’s a whole world of English words to uncover!

This unique dictionary for kids includes:

• Roots & branches―Learn about the building blocks that make up words, called roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
• Word snack―See where your favorite food words got their start, from back to marshmallow, spaghetti, yogurt, and beyond.
• Kid-friendly definitions―Look up dictionary definitions designed for your reading level and awesome imagination.

See how the English language evolved with this colorful dictionary for kids.

“As kids flip through this book, they’ll feel like they’re decoding secret messages from the past. This book teaches an important lesson: by understanding language we can better understand each other and the world around us. I love that.” —Aubre Andrus, award-winning children’s book author