What Is That Thing? Whose Stuff Is This? provides the same practical motivation for vocabulary development that Oh, How I Wished I Could Read! provides for reading power. It is a book parents and teachers can enjoy themselves as they use it to help children understand the key role of words in our lives, the connection between reading and vocabulary development (what Gile calls "word power"), and how the words we say to each other can harm and hurt -- or help and heal. The beautiful, charming, and even heartwarming illustrations by freelance artist and elementary school art teacher Karen Gruntman are a perfect match for Gile's lyrically written text which capitalizes on the phonological awareness dimension of rhythm and rhyme in writing.