I love to find good wordless books to use in speech therapy. I can use them for most anything–storytelling, description, specific grammar goals such as verb tense or prepositions, articulation carryover or stuttering. The key to a good wordless book is obviously the illustrations but they have to give you enough of the story but not every detail so the child can fill it in.

Gem by Hollie Hobbie is a new nearly wordless picture book (the story is preceded and followed by a letter from Gram to her grandaughter about her memories of a certain toad) which is a great tool for speech therapy. Here is my full review:

Hollie Hobbie’s illustrations lead us through the delicate spring foliage as a little toad makes his way from this pond to the farmhouse flower garden. After leaving the safety of his lily pads, the toad escapes the wheel of a car, finds a mate, avoids capture by a hawk and discovers a little girl. This nearly wordless book tells the story through delightful watercolors full of expression. No words are needed to understand the brief dilemma of the little girl–should I keep the toad as a pet or let him go? Toad’s final perch on the bird bath with a little grin on his face tells us that she made the right decision. I’ve used this book over and over to build children’s storytelling, description an inference as they interpret the drawings, change and add to the story each time. These beautiful illustrations beg for a storyteller to begin!