Review of Dictionary for a Better World by Irene Latham and Charles Waters

How can we make the world a better place? This inspiring resource for middle-grade readers is organized as a dictionary; each entry presents a word related to creating a better world, such as ally, empathy, or respect. For each word, there is a poem, a quote from an inspiring person, a personal anecdote from the authors, and a "try it" prompt for an activity.

This second poetic collaboration from Irene Latham and Charles Waters builds upon themes of diversity and inclusiveness from their previous book Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship. Illustrations from Iranian-British artist Mehrdokht Amini offer readers a rich visual experience.

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**My thoughts**
This beautifully illustrated book has at least one positive word for every single letter of the alphabet. And then each one of those words has an accompanying poem. Included with each one is a definition of poetry terms, an inspirational quote from a famous person, words of wisdom from Irene and Charles, who put this book together, and activities that you can do that are related to the category word for that poem.

These illustrations are just stunning, and each one perfectly fits the word it is describing. One of my favorites is for Kindness, where the person has a heart cutout in his chest and is holding a heart in his hands as if he is offering it to someone. Another great one is for Reach, based on Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, which is one of my favorite works.

I would definitely use this to introduce poetry for children. You have a whole unit on different kinds of poetry in this book. I would encourage children to write out their own responses to the poems, maybe even before reading the reactions of the authors. And I like a lot of the suggested activities. They really help you get to know yourself and be more aware of yourself in the world around you.

I think you could adapt these activities for all ages, elementary through high school. Even adults could benefit from some of the self-reflection involved.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a requested review copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.