Are you a word person? A curiosity seeker? An explorer? Take a look at these twenty-six extraordinary individuals for whom love of language is an extreme sport. maniacs BUILDERS OF Me) >) EI PI fic WORD PAUL FLEISCHMAN arrsy MELISSA SWEET 10 yph-o-rbyb-gobb-9 9.99 (25.99 CAN) ‘Alvemable a ane-book Agereandyp “160 pages Daniel Nussbaum Jean-Dominique Bauby Corin Tellado “Thomas Urquhart Bohumil Hrabat Raymond Queneau Jessie Litle Doe Baird Georges Pere Mare Okrand ‘Simon Vostre Ignatius Donnelly Howard Chace Rost Eekler Robert McCormick Frederic Cassidy Mary Ellen Solt Doris Gross Robert Shields Sven Jacobson Mike Gold Allen Read, David Wallace Landwik Zamenhot sins pis 2089 pee CANDLEWICK)STUDIO Alphamaniacs BUILDERS OF 26 WONDERS WORD Step right up and read the genuine stories of writers so intoxicated by the shapes and sound of language that they collected, dissected, and constructed verbal wonders ofthe most extraordinary kind. [ean-Dominique Baubywrote his memoirs by blinking his left eyelid, wnable wo move the rest of his body, Frederic Cassidy was obsessed with the language of place, and after posing hundreds of questions to folks allover the United States, amassed (among other things) 1z5wordsfordust bunnies, Ceorges Pereewroteanevel without using the letter (so well that atleast one reviewer dida’t natiee its absence) then followed with a novella in whieh ewas the only vowel. Alove leter to all those wha love words, language, writing, writers and stories, Alphamaniace is a stunningly illustrated collection of mini-biographies about the most aring and pe suliar of writers and their audacious, courageous, te way with words, Paul Fleischman lias been aletierpress printer and proofreader and is the founder of the tongue-in-cheek grammar watchdog group ColonWatch Hes aleo the author of many books for children and young adults, including the Ne ry Medal winner Jyful Nove: Poems for Teo Voices With Candlewick Press, he isthe author of Welandia, The Dunderheads, The Matchbox Diary, and Byes Wide Open: Going Behind Enironmental Hea He lives in Sante Cruz, California Melissa Sweet hes illustrated nearly one lnmnred hooks for children, including the Caldecott Honor Books The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus nul A River of Words: The Story of Wiliam Carlos Williams, With Candlewick, she isthe illustrator of Baabwaa and Wooliam and Firefly July: A Year of Very ‘Short Poem. Melissa Sweet lives in Portland, Maine.‘Take a seat, remove your hat, and discard as well your fear of the outrageous, the hrain-haffling, the hizarre. Prepare to bebold a pageant without equal, Pethaps you've seen fire-eaters and contor~ tionists. But who among you has looked upon a lipogram? Amondegreen? Zaum? For most ofus, atree is a tree. But some—the imaginers, he tinkerers—turn trees into canoes and theirleaves into sails, Those you're about to meet are ofthis ile. Their voyages? Extraordinary. Their persistence? Superhuman. The realea they explozed? Not the physical one, but the airy land ofletters. and I may barely notice the words fitting around ws, But these men and women? Intoxicated by thei Collecting, dissecting, constructing verbal wonders as colossal and razely glimpsed as the over- shapes and sounds! Seeing music and mathematics where we see simply information! ‘grown pyramids ofthe Mayans! Bach of their tales is more astounding than the lst. And every one ofthera true! We take pride in our progress from caves to condominiums, but is that the whole story of humanity? Ifs0, how to explain our elaborate pursuits thar don't improve the roofs over ourheads oradd a cent te cur bank accounts? Could itbe that we live not on bread alone but also on curiosity, challenge, beauty, and play? Ponder the figures I'll now introduce, Let the parade begin! CANDLEWICK STUDIO. ‘aninpn of Conlowiek a ‘wi catenin com