What's your word of the day?

It's how we start each session of Happy Hour for Young Readers & Writers. If I slip up and race to writing, the youngsters are quick to set me straight: But we haven't done word of the day, they say, alarmed I could forget such an important component of our weekly gatherings.

Polkadots is a popular word. Coffee comes in week after week (from the same energetic girl) and peanut butter pie was a big hit, too.

Let's stretch ourselves, I say, after bored or depressed is mentioned for the third time. And so our Word Wall became dotted with a new language:

boomalotice

zipolicious

confuzzled

prettyful

hoper

I was conflicted at first. That's not a word, I would say in my cranky librarian voice. My old-school ways wanted the kids to appreciate the beauty of existing language, real words. But the more accepting life-is-art part of me giggled at their creativity. Writing is a love of language, the sounds and shapes words can make. These made-up and mixed-up words — fueled with an enthusiasm for invention — are the apex of language appreciation. And, really, zipolicious is just plain fun.