{"id":363,"date":"2013-12-30T11:40:46","date_gmt":"2013-12-30T17:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jamieaswenson.com\/studious-cat\/?p=363"},"modified":"2013-12-30T11:40:46","modified_gmt":"2013-12-30T17:40:46","slug":"onomatopoeia-and-such","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jamieaswenson.com\/studious-cat\/2013\/12\/onomatopoeia-and-such\/","title":{"rendered":"Onomatopoeia and such"},"content":{"rendered":"

*Ahhhh pooooof* Phew. There we go. Had to blow the dust off the keyboard! That’s better! Schwack, schwaaack. Thwip. (a few cobwebs). It’s been a while – I apologize. SMOOCH! (that better?)<\/p>\n

I’ve been told I tend to use a lot of sound words in my writing – you know – the whole onomatopoeia thing. It’s true. I LOVE sound words. And I DO use them often when I write. Especially in my picture books, but I use sound words in my middle grade books as well. Why?<\/p>\n

Because sound words are FUN! They break up text and provide white space\/pacing\/rhythm. Plus, they not only invite the reader into the text — they grab the reader by the ear and pull them along! Ouch! BANG! SNAP! Arrrrooooooo! How could a read resist such lovely words? And better yet — how could a CHILD not turn around and LOOK at an adult reading such silly, fun words?<\/p>\n

I suppose that’s where it all started. In my ‘other life’ I’m an early literacy storyteller. I started out when I was a teen – going to summer park programs and reading stories to hot, sweaty, tired, often sugared-up kids. When you’re not much older than your audience, I think you tend to ham it up a bit \"Flash<\/a>(at least, I did) in order to keep their attention on\u00a0the story\u00a0and not on a passing butterfly. The Big Bad Wolf HUFFED and PUFFED and BAM-CRASH! knocked those little houses down. Those pigs cried WEEEE WEEE WEEE! And don’t even get me started on Little Red Riding Hood. Sound words did the trick – I would add them in if the author had somehow missed an opportunity CREAK! SQUEAK! Swish swish. So, when I started writing my own picture books – of course I added the sound words into the text. (Why should the poor reader have to work so hard to come up w\/ the appropriate sounds at the appropriate time?). Plus, as the writer – if you add in sound words – you are giving your illustrator room to play. In my first book, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!, David Walker used my sound words to enhance the illustration. Someone recently asked if I had written those words too – or if the illustrator had just done that … OF COURSE I WROTE THE WORDS! GAK! (but I answered politely – honestly, people – I’m the author – if I let the illustrator do everything, what would be left? GRIN).<\/p>\n

I also used a lot animal sounds in BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! (there are even more in my book IF YOU WERE A DOG due out in fall 2014). Again, not only does the sound break up the text and invite the reader in — but it is an early literacy tool as well (we library types like to call this\u00a0phonological awareness). Kids learn language by\u00a0playing with it – manipulating it – splicing and dicing it into individual sounds\u00a0– and by hearing the sounds slowed down a bit. What’s better than Arrrrooooo! or Hisssss! or YEOWL! or Squawk! or Ribbet ribbet! Kids love to make animal sounds – and they are easy to break up into syllables – if you’re so inclined. And kids are. So are teachers. So, I ask you, brave writers, why not add a few sounds in? You’ll love it. I promise. Even a ‘quiet’ picture book can benefit from a few soft sounds…. shhhhhh…. pat pat pat…. drip drip drip …. whoosh … hush hush …<\/p>\n

My next book BIG RIG is packed with sound words too … what can I tell you — I just love me the onomatopoeia (and I think Frankie’s illustrator, Ned Young, does too!)\"Urrrnnnt<\/a>Urrrrnnntt! Urrrrnnntt! Keep the shiny side up and the rubber side down!<\/p>\n

BIG RIG will hit the road on Feb. 4, 2014.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*Ahhhh pooooof* Phew. There we go. Had to blow the dust off the keyboard! That’s better! Schwack, schwaaack. Thwip. (a few cobwebs). It’s been a while – I apologize. SMOOCH! (that better?) I’ve been told I tend to use a lot of sound words in my writing – you know – the whole onomatopoeia thing. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[168],"tags":[194,184,219,218,220,217,215,221,216],"class_list":["post-363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-revision","tag-big-rig","tag-boom-boom-boom","tag-david-walker","tag-disney-hyperion","tag-fsg","tag-ned-young","tag-onomatopoeia","tag-phonological-awareness","tag-sound-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3h4TT-5R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamieaswenson.com\/studious-cat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamieaswenson.com\/studious-cat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamieaswenson.com\/studious-cat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamieaswenson.com\/studious-cat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamieaswenson.com\/studious-cat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamieaswenson.com\/studious-cat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamieaswenson.com\/studious-cat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamieaswenson.com\/studious-cat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamieaswenson.com\/studious-cat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}