For anyone who loves words as much as I do, Kate Banks’ “Max’s Words” is the perfect book. Max’s brothers each have fabulous collections – Benjamin collects stamps (what fun!) and Karl collects coins (slow down there, cowboy).  As a child, I and my friend Gretchen collected department store tags that had fallen on the floor of our local Marshall’s…but that’s for another time. Max, after some thought, decides that he would like to collect words. Cutting words out of newspapers and magazines, Max’s collection of amazing, stupendous, intriguing words grows and grows until he has just about enough to write a story for himself. Patching together his collection into a incredible tales of adventure and captivated by this new use for words, Max’s brothers get in on the action and find themselves working together with Max to build stories beyond their imaginations. Max is a child after my own heart – curious, literary and totally quirky. And the best kind of child – one who discovers the true power of words and creates something beautiful from them.