It’s soooo much fun to say! But what is an onomatopoeia? Well, here’s a poem with a couple of great examples:
A Dog Saw a Cat on a Lonely Roof
A dog saw a cat on a lonely roof.
He greeted her with a friendly ‘woof.’
The cat looked at him with a hopeful ‘meow.‘
“I’d like to come down but I don’t know how.”
~From funnyrhymes.blogspot.com
Merriam-Webster defines onomatopoeia as “the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as buzz, hiss).” In the poem above, “woof” and “meow” are onomatopoeias.
Books that feature onomatopoeias are not only fun to listen to but are also fun to read. Consider the classic “Mr Brown Can Moo! Can You?” by Dr. Seuss. Whether reader or listener, it’s hard not to laugh when Mr. Brown sounds off with everything from “moo moo” and “boom boom” to “sizzle sizzle” and “blurp blurp!”
At DBRL, we have a wide variety of books that feature onomatopoeias. Here are a few (from a very long list!) you can enjoy with your children.
- “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” by Michael Rosen
- “Tap Tap Boom Boom” by Elizabeth Bluemle
- “Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type” by Doreen Cronin
- “Split! Splat!”by Amy Gibson
- “In the Small, Small Pond” by Denise Fleming
- “Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears” by Verna Aardema
- “Cock-a-doodle-doo, Creak, Pop-pop, Moo” by Jim Aylesworth
- “The Cat Says Meow and Other Animalopoeia” by Michael Arndt
- “Oh, Look!” by Patricia Polacco
- “Rattletrap Car” by Phyllis Root
