Joseph Kimble loves words. He taught legal writing at Cooley Law School, has been a professor emeritus for 35 years, and has spent his career advocating for plain language and clarity in legal writing. He has won numerous national and international awards for his work teaching lawyers to write clearly and plainly so their documents can be better understood by wider audiences.
But clear communication doesn’t mean he doesn’t love to have fun with big words. His new children’s book, Mr. Mouthful and the Monkeynappers, the second one featuring his bombastic main character, is written in Kimble’s own poetic style and features a plethora of droll and idiosyncratic vocabulary words from the titular character:
Well, here comes Mr. Mouthful,
Our favorite fancy-pants,
Our fan of using big words.
He’s out and about with Dupree,
Who’s sporting his brand-new shades
And some superlicious sneakers.
“We feel pretty spiffy,
You bet your sweet bippy,
We’re off on a promenade.”
Pretty soon, young Lucy tags along.
And JoJo as well — in a line.
They’re striding together as one,
Left, right, left — all in step —
Swaying from side to side,
Raising their arms in the air.
They’re having a blast.
They think it’s a gas,
Imitating that hotshot, Dupree.
Wait! There’s an unmarked hole.
Mr. Mouthful, though, doesn’t yell, “Stop!”
Instead, he blibblety-blathers:
“Such a perilous situation!
For your personal
Safety and comfort,
Take heed of…”
Too late for the kids.
They fell in with a thud
And get covered with mud.
Mr. Mouthful was no help at all.
As Mr. Mouthful and Dupree, a stylish monkey and Mr. Mouthful’s best friend, strut around town, Mr. Mouthful’s inability to simply say what he means gets the pair into trouble. Kirkus Reviews calls Mr. Mouthful and the Monkeynappers “a clever story with a verbose main character who learns to listen to kids.”
Kimble, who splits his time between Michigan and Arizona, always wants his stories to feature the kids as the heroes. Kirkuspicks up on this theme, noting that “when the kids end up as the heroes, teaching Mr. Mouthful that sometimes actions take precedence over words, young readers should cheer along.”
Kimble can look back on the writing process for the first book, Mr. Mouthful Learns His Lesson, and see why he struggled at first to create a satisfying ending. To avoid spoilers, Kimble improved his ending by creating a theme he would revisit in Mr. Mouthful and the Monkeynappers and made the kids wise figures from whom the loquacious Mr. Mouthful learns something important: When you need to communicate, it’s more critical to be understood than to use the fanciest words.
Kids intuitively understand this, and Kimble has greatly enjoyed going on school visits and talking with them about the fun of language. He says that they love to see all the different drafts and steps it takes to go from an idea to a finished picture book. It’s always a big hit to show them preliminary character sketches from illustrator Kerry Bell, whose drawing style Kirkus praises for “[capturing] the chaotic energy of the adventure.” Kimble also loves to talk to kids about vocabulary, word meanings, and how to have fun with words. He shows the kids how to go to online dictionaries so they can look up what new words mean and hear the bigger words spoken out loud.
Kimble cares a great deal about clear communication in the high-stakes world of legal writing, but that care comes from a deep affection for language and words. A student of literature, he loves poetry, especially the classic works of Robert Frost, W. B. Yeats, and Emily Dickinson. Kimble admits that he did not do a lot of intensive study of children’s literature before writing the Mr. Mouthful books, but it’s clear that he has a poet’s extensive linguistic toolbox. During the drafting process, he fiddled around with where to put the rhymes and how to structure the stanzas until he got it just right. Mr. Mouthful’s name comes not only from his word choices but also from his own long-winded way of speaking, drawing his sentences out so that the stanza can barely hold them, visually illustrating Kimble’s larger point.
The Kirkus review highlights how Kimble “[introduces] ridiculous, anachronistic words to young readers to prevent them from becoming frightened of unfamiliar vocabulary” and that “the rhythmic sentences sometimes include internal rhymes, and the ten-cent words make for a fun read-aloud. While some words may require a dictionary (‘Disport, disport. Strut your stuff’), most are readily understandable from the context.”
“I had an idea for a story, and I started writing it,” says Kimble. “I started sketching it out on a plane. But I went mostly by feel and by experience, and my goal, above all, was to be interesting and funny. It’s educational in a way, while I’m poking a little good-natured fun at Mr. Mouthful, but part of the fun of the book is about learning new words.”
Kimble always has a blast going on school visits, where the kids are game to use the context clues to learn Mr. Mouthful’s new words and practice looking up words they can’t figure out. But it isn’t just kids who love Mr. Mouthful and the Monkeynappers; Kimble’s Mr. Mouthful books have garnered glowing reviews from publications such as BookLife, Clarion Reviews, BlueInk, and the Lansing State Journal. The National Parenting Center said that the first Mr. Mouthful story was “a superb book that you will want in your home.”
To someone who hasn’t read the books, it may seem contradictory to encourage kids to build up big vocabularies while also cautioning them against using these words. But Kimble knows well that the magic of language is in how it allows us to communicate and therefore connect with each other. The more words you know, the more of yourself you’ll be able to share; it’s only when using big words to make yourself sound impressive to others, or when writing institutionalized legalese, that we need to be called back to plain language.
“The goal should be clear communication, whether you’re in the legal world or writing for kids,” says Kimble. “Of course, there’s an element of fun when you’re writing for kids, but as I’ve been teaching law students for 30 years, the end goal is the same: clarity. Now, lawyers will tell you that you can’t write legal documents clearly, but it’s a myth. You can be clear and accurate at the same time. But as far as the kids go, my motto is right on the dedication page: learn to love words, big and small, and learn which words to use when.” That’s the lesson that Mr. Mouthful learns when he’s faced with an emergency in Mr. Mouthful and the Monkeynappers; maybe lawyers could learn the same lesson from the kids Kimble meets on his school visits.
As for further Mr. Mouthful adventures, Kimble admits that he doesn’t have a clear idea for a third book right now. He’s also very busy with his legal work and notes that it took him quite a long time to write the first two books. “Three is a nice round number, though, isn’t it?” he says. “The idea for the third story will pop into my head someday.”
Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn.
