How Can A Story Have Only Two-Letter Words? - Guest Post from Author Larry Baum

By Larry Baum

When my children, Ryan and Ianna, were old enough to learn to read, I looked for children's books with short words so that I could ease them into the world of reading as gently as possible. But every book I found had some long words. I wondered if a book could be written using only short words. How short? 4 letters? No problem. 3 letters. Sure. OK, I thought, let's push it further. What about 2 letters? Hmm, that would be a challenge, especially to make a story that's interesting, with characters, action, and humor.

I listed the common 2-letter words. There were very few verbs, but plenty of prepositions. How could I use this odd vocabulary? Soap bubbles move all sorts of ways, thus, they were a great prop to soak up many 2-letter prepositions. Using bubbles and the characters Bo, Ed, and Ma, I wrote WE GO TO BO.

After being too busy with work for several years, I finally decided to hire an illustrator and publish the book myself, making the e-book free and the printed book cheap so that as many children as possible could benefit from it. I discovered Joanna Pasek's charming watercolor illustrations online, and we worked together to create the book. We aimed to make it as easy as possible for beginning readers by using large, thick, capital letters to make words clear and obvious. I hope you can use this book to introduce children to the initially bewildering wide world of words.

If you use WE GO TO BO to teach your children or students to read, or if you have any questions or comments on the book, please let me know. I’d be happy to hear from you. Thank you!