There are no words to describe the excitement I’m feeling. Your intrepid Toy Box Mommy is a lover of words, a nerd of the highest order. I am what happens when that geeky little bookworm in the corner grows up. Words make me happy.

So you can perhaps imagine the elation I felt when I discovered that there’s a new hero in town. It’s time to meet WordGirl:

WordGirl is a new animated series that follows the every day life and superhero adventures of “WordGirl” as she fights crime and enriches vocabulary usage, all in a day’s work. Disguised as mild-mannered 5th grader, Becky Botsford, WordGirl arrived on planet Earth when she and her monkey sidekick, Captain Huggy Face, crashed their spaceship. In classic superhero form, WordGirl possesses superhero strength with the added benefit of a colossal vocabulary. WordGirl has a family and friends who have no idea of her secret identity. As WordGirl, she battles and prevails over evil (albeit ridiculous and comical) villains.

Each episode introduces four new vocabulary words and will reinforce their meaning in a variety of contexts throughout the episode. The vocabulary itself is not necessarily a plot point. The show teaches new vocabulary words to children in a variety of fun and interesting contexts. WordGirl is a superhero spoof, so storylines are funny takes of familiar stories from that genre.

WordGirl enriches young audiences’ vocabulary, closes the gap for those who don’t grow up in language-rich environments, instills a love of language, and fosters better reading comprehension.

Only a superhero like WordGirl, endowed with power punches and dictionary strength, can put the word-wrenching scoundrels back in their place proving once again that crime doesn’t pay… but knowing the right word for the right moment is priceless.

Word up, WordGirl.

There will be a special sneak peek episode of WordGirl on PBS Kids Go on Monday, September 3rd (check your local listings), with the official premiere on Friday, September 8th. WordGirl is a Scholastic Media Soup2Nuts production and claims its target audience to be 6- to 8-year-olds, but I’m guessing even older kids will get a kick out of it. See for yourself:

Want more? There’s another clip here and then—this may be my favorite—there’s also a Jim Lehrer interview with WordGirl. You can also check out a bit of the back story on the series in this article about Dorothea Gillim, the show’s executive producer (and WordGirl’s alter ego).

This kid’s got moxy, and I bet you she could define that for you if you need her to, too.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 6:21 am and is filed under Random acts of television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.