WOW Review: Volume XVIII, Issue 2 • Page 2 of 11 • Worlds of Words

Introduction and Editors’ Note

Childhood has been described as an ideal time to foster curiosity about the world with imaginative and creative play. In a culture that replaces freedom to explore with movies, video games and structured play, these titles serve as encouragement to be curious, imagine with abandon, and create games, ideas, inventions, and music. The ability to imagine is an important tool for solving problems, and these titles exemplify that ability as the protagonists seek creative solutions to problems they face.

In The History of We, Nikolas Smith gives readers a peek into the amazing creativity of our earliest ancestors as they explored, developed survival tools, recorded history, and celebrated life. Fast forward many millennia and that wonderful creativity is profiled in a boy’s curiosity about words in Marcelo, Martello, Marshmallow, a girl’s efforts to make her dreams take place in Hopscotch, and in the variety of words in Arabic for different expressions of love in Eleven Words for Love: A Journey Through Arabic Expressions of Love.

Problem solving is the impetus for creative thinking in Freedom Braids, a story of the way enslaved people in Colombia wove directions for freedom trails into braids. Go Forth and Tell: The Life of Augusta Baker, Librarian and Master Storyteller profiles the creative work of Augusta Baker, a librarian in Harlem, who saw the lack of positive African American portrayals and set about addressing the problem. A contemporary example of creative problem-solving is portrayed in The Great Banned-Books Bake Sale as fourth graders rally to fight censorship in their school library.

Several titles profile the tradition of passing down creative knowledge from one generation to another in Indigenous communities. In Heart Berry Bling, a young girl learns how to use beads to decorate objects but also to tell the stories of her culture. In Berry Song, a grandmother takes her granddaughter to harvest food from the rivers, sea, and forest.

We invite you to read and learn from these examples of creative thinking in the face of challenges. We also invite you to submit book reviews for future issues. Please consult the guidelines and the calls:

Volume 18, Issue 3 (Spring 2026 – submission deadline: March 1, 2026) – Open theme. The editors welcome reviews of global or multicultural children’s or young adult books published within the last three years that highlight intercultural understanding and global perspectives.

Volume 18, Issue 4 (Summer 2026 – submission deadline: May 1, 2026) – Themed issue profiling titles in which resistance is part of the plot. Examples of resistance could be stories in which child protagonists challenge injustice and/or authority, question norms, or critique power structures. It could include resisting a single story (e.g., Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story) or resisting an inner prompting.

Susan Corapi, Co-Editor
Melissa Wilson, Co-Editor

Authors retain copyright over the reviews published in this journal and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under the following Creative Commons License: