A lipogram is a kind of constrained writing in which a particular letter, or groups of letters, are missing. Imagine writing a paragraph, for example, excluding the letter ‘e.’ It’s tougher than you think, especially, if you decide to omit vowels — the linguistic glue, as it were — between the consonants. In A Voweller’s Bestiary, author JonArno Lawson takes a unique stab at the lipogrammatic genre. He has created an alphabet book of animals based on vowel combinations, rather than on the usual initial letter form. The lipogram part comes in when he excludes certain vowels from each set. Sound complicated? Well, what’s a constraint (and possible consternation!) for the poet in terms of rules can be a delight to the ear and eye of the reader. And that is how a Voweller’s Bestiary was received by my son, listening to the contorted word music of “Ants and Aardvarks” or “Jaguar, Tarantula, Tangalunga” or “Tortoise, Porpoise, Crocodile.” Reading poetry can attune your child to the sounds of language and help them appreciate the elasticity of words.
Another poetry book I tried out on my younger child was Rascally Rhymes by Jordan Troutt, illustrated by Sarah Preston-Bloor. This book, also an alphabet one, takes names and makes ‘rascally rhymes’ wit
h them. There’s Ian who eats “worms and toads/and rocks and snails/a la mode.” or Gillian who “stomps like a gorillian.” After we finished reading this book, my daughter and I went through all the names and tried to see if we knew anyone with the same name. That was fun! Palimpsest Press, who publishes this book, is now offering a contest on their blog for children to makes rhymes. Reading this book definitely had an effect on my daughter. While sorting laundry together the other night, she held up a sock and said “Mom, this sock doesn’t have a rhyme!”