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I love language. I especially love the poetry that comes from chasing words free association style through the pages of a Roget’s unabridged. As someone who makes their living largely through writing, there is no better office companion. With words grouped by meaning rather than alphabet, browsing it often feels like a waking dream or an act of meditation. I even use it in my design work when I am stuck for inspiration.

So, imagine my absolute delight when I discovered that the good folks at Thinkmap have taken my intuitive approach one step further, and created a Visual Thesaurus that in their words “works like your brain, not a paper-bound book. You’ll want to explore just to see what might happen.” Type in any word, and before your eyes blossom the most beautiful, delicate constellations. At the heart is your word, and around it a branching depiction of all of the related words on a snowy white field.

Each related word meaning is depicted by a different color (noun, verb, adjective, or adverb), and its relationship to the original word, be it synonym or antonym, is depicted by a different kind of line. Click an icon in the center, and you can even hear it pronounced. Click on any word in the constellation and a new form magically blooms. Quite aside from its usefulness, it’s really beautiful.

“The whole interface feels almost alive; it reinforces word connections in a direct manner and encourages exploration… overall it’s a rare, rewarding example of a paper-bound process that has been radically rethought from the bits up.” -The Washington Post

Check out a free trial at www.visualthesaurus.com, and while you’re there try your hand at the spelling bee or any of the other fun language games, create your favorite thematic word constellations, and generally join the language geekery. If you love it as much as I do, the $20 annual subscription seems like a small price to pay for something that’s both practical and a whole bunch of fun.

Hello Bookhounds.

Looking for a good recommendation?

Each year ABC produces a 20 page, full color consumer catalog packed with 240 of our picks for the top children’s books of the year.

The catalog alchemy begins with bookseller recommendations, and then is rounded out with an exhaustive review of critical picks, award winners, and small press gems that sometimes escape attention.

400,000 of this catalog are printed and distributed to consumers through ABC member stores in the fourth quarter, but as a member of the pixie stix faithful, you can print out a low-res version here, as well as a copy of the booklist by publisher.

If you like the list, you’ll *heart* your local independent children’s bookstore even more! Please consider buying these books locally, because investing in a relationship with your local independent children’s bookseller will pay off many times over in great recommendations in the years to come. Find your local independent bookstore at BookSense.

Of course, with nearly 18,000 children’s titles published every year, there are always many more worthy titles than we can include, so as a EXTRA BONUS here’s the pixie stix 2007 fav’s list, which includes the catalog titles and so much more.

Enjoy!!