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The Word Eater

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The Word Eater

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Overview

Life is miserable for sixth grader Lerner Chanse at her new shool, where the MPOOE (Most Powerful Ones On Earth) Club ruthlessly rules over the SLUGs (Sorry Losers Under Ground). It looks as if Lerner is destined to be a SLUG, until she finds a magical worm that eats printed words instead of dirt. If Fip eats a word, that item simply disappears from the world -- forever.

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ISBN-13:	9780823426799
Publisher:	Holiday House
Publication date:	05/08/2012
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	151
Lexile:	670L (what's this?)
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Mary Amato is an award-winning children's book author, poet, playwright, and songwriter. Her books have been translated into foreign languages, optioned for television, produced onstage, and nominated for the children's choice awards in many states. She lives in Maryland.

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Editorial Reviews

This first novel may hold some appeal for bookworms, but a multitude of subplots proves distracting and weakens the tension. There are two basic story lines. The first revolves around a newborn worm named Fip, whose appetite runs to words rather than dirt. The second centers on sixth-grader Lerner Chase, recently--and unhappily--transplanted from Wisconsin to Washington, D.C. Lerner discovers Fip and realizes that every time he eats a word, the object it signifies disappears forever. The results of Fip's consumption can be pleasant (Fip eats a vending machine number and unleashes free chocolate bars) or dire (Fip eats the name of a newly charted star, sending its discoverer into a crisis). These developments occasion secondary story lines (e.g., about a sinister tycoon who employs thumb tacks and child labor to train the vicious dogs he sells as "Attackaterriers"). Amato plausibly sketches Lerner's evolving sense of responsibility about Fip's powers, including her panic when he almost eats the word "oxygen" and the name of her teacher Mr. Droan (but ends up devouring the words "Markus Droan's suit" instead.) The classroom dynamics between the ruling elite, Most Powerful Ones on Earth (MPOOEs), and the outcasts, Sorry Losers Under Ground (SLUGs), are believable enough, but with the exception of Lerner, most characters emerge as caricatures or types. Ages 8-12. (June) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 4-6-The book opens with the turn of a page on the Bookworm's Desk Calendar, heralding the birth of a seemingly ordinary worm. But this is no common creature, for readers soon learn that he has a voracious appetite for the written word. It is sixth-grade Lerner Chanse who discovers that when Fip eats a word, that object disappears-forever. Lerner is having a hard time finding her place in her new school. She doesn't want any part of the MPOOE club (Most Powerful Ones on Earth), nor does she want to belong to the only other group-the SLUGS (Sorry Losers Under Ground). In a series of clever, if far-fetched events, she daringly uses Fip's power to turn the tide on the MPOOEs. Tongue-in-cheek wordplay in the quote on the desk calendar that opens each chapter prepares readers for the outlandish series of happenings to come.-Doris Gebel, Northport-East Northport Public Library, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

An overstuffed tale that will nevertheless wriggle its way into readers' affections, starring an out-crowd sixth grader and a tiny, worm-like creature who can make anything vanish by eating the word for it. Hatchling Fip's taste for the printed word may be judged unacceptably "runtly and weakish" by his earthworm clan, but when he munches on an empty thumbtack box, loose papers suddenly avalanche from bulletin boards nationwide. Fip doesn't stop there; unhappily on her way to being dubbed a SLUG (Sorry Loser Under Ground) by the classroom coterie MPOOE (Most Powerful Ones On Earth), Lerner Chanse spots him sampling an article about a newly discovered star. Learning later that the star has vanished from the skies, she confirms her suspicion by nudging him onto the school lunch menu (no more spinach soufflé—anywhere, ever again). Has Lerner found the way to acceptance—or to universal disaster? Both, as it turns out, though ensuing misadventures ranging from the near-catastrophic—as when Fip nearly eats the word "oxygen" out of her science homework—to the hilarious teach her that her little buddy's ability is definitely nothing to trifle with. In the end, the universe is saved when a clever bookworm entices Fip to gobble down the words "Fip's magic." To drive home the point that actions can have unintended, far-reaching repercussions, Amato trucks in a sackful of side plots, including one wildly tangential tale involving a ruthless businessman who finally gets proper comeuppance for using thumbtacks, manufactured by captive children, to train attack dogs. Several stories bundled together, this amiablecautionarytale, often reminiscent of Clifton Fadiman's Wally the Wordworm or Mary Haynes's more melodramatic Wordchanger , makes a promising, if undisciplined, debut. (Fiction. 10-12)

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