Inspirational Mom :: WordGirl Creator Dorothea Gillim

I love how life can be so serendipitous (a word you would find on WordGirl). While walking to breakfast at the PBS annual meeting that I attended this month as part of their PBS Kids Ambassador Program, I happened to be walking next to a woman who was also going to breakfast.  We started talking and turns out she is the Executive Producer of Curious George but she explained that her “baby” is WordGirl.  I literally stopped in my tracks as we are big fans of WordGirl!  I told her how my sister-in-law dressed up my niece as Captain Huggyface and her older daughter as WordGirl one year for Halloween.  It was hysterical!  How cool that I ran into the Executive Producer and Creator of WordGirl!  I just had to take a picture with her to show my daughter who has been watching WordGirl nonstop since!

These days my daughter can not get enough WordGirl.  If you haven’t had a chance to check out WordGirl you really should as the program is about teaching children new vocabulary and the appropriate way to use the words in a sentence.  WordGirl is an American children’s animated television series for children aged 9 –12, produced by the Soup2Nuts animation unit of Scholastic Entertainment for PBS Kids. The show has received five Daytime Emmy nominations, winning twice for “Outstanding Writing in Animation” in 2008 and 2012. (Source: Wikipedia.com). My daughter is six and can keep up with the vocabulary and storyline so I definitely think it can be enjoyed by children younger than 9 years of age!

 Dorothea Gillim Loves Words!

Dorothea Gillim former life was as a 5th grade teacher and she told me that instead of the usual “Show and Tell” she would have her students bring in a new favorite word and “Tell” the class about this word;  why they like it, what it means and how to use it in a sentence.  What a wonderful idea to encourage a love of words and reading!  Dorothea said she has always loved words since she was a little kid and in 9th grade asked her parents for dictionary for Christmas.  After teaching for 3 years she realized that she wanted to continue to have an impact on children but not necessarily in the classroom so she went to Harvard School of Education for a year of exploration.  After graduating, she did freelance writing and contacted a local education software company about working with them.  She soon realized she wasn’t cut out for softward development but a position opened up on the company’s first animated comedy – Dr. Katz.  She says that working on  Dr. Katz helped her get her sensibility for comedy.  The show used humor to engage kids and she said the writers and talent who worked on Dr. Katz with her turned out to be many of the people she contacted once she had created WordGirl.

WordGirl: Great role-model for our girls!

While Dorothea was working at  Soup2Nuts animation unit of Scholastic Entertainment for PBS Kids and she said wanted to create a show whose character was a role model for girls and had her niece in mind when she created WordGirl.   At that time Ally McBeal was popular and ruled the airwaves.  If you remember the show, Ally’s character was usually in the restroom upset about something and not a very good role model for our girls – even though she played a lawyer. Dorothea said she wanted to create a character who was in fact the opposite of Ally McBeal – someone strong, independent, and resourceful.  There was not the superhero craze like we see today so the idea that a girl could be a superhero was pretty groundbreaking.  When designing WordGirl they made sure to create a girl who was ambiguous and could appeal to any child of any ethnicity.  She said she wanted to make sure that any child could relate to her.

Dorothea co-developed WordGirl with head writer Jack D. Ferraiolo and together they created all of the great names and characters like Captain Huggyface, Mr. Big, The Butcher, Ms. Questions, Granny May and many more.  She worked on WordGirl as Executive Producer and Creator and still holds the title of Creator though she moved on to work as Executive Producer of Curious George at WGBH, a local PBS station in Boston after three seasons.  Dorothea said it is interesting working on a show where the main character doesn’t speak.  She says the experience has been great and a real challenge. I would say she is doing a great job as Curious George is the #1 show nationally for children!  I asked her if her kids are impressed that she works on Curious George or that she created WordGirl and she said her two stepchildren are not really impressed.   You know how kids can be!  My daughter has told me several times she is “over” pirates (my children’s book is about pirates) and she recommended that I write a new book that features superheroes.  Kids…

When I asked Dorothea what is one of the main points she hopes kids take away from WordGirl she said “One of the main things I hope kids will take away from WordGirl is that learning a new word is fun and empowering. Eloquence can be a superpower — because it’s powerful when you have exactly the right word to express how you feel or what you experience.”  Thanks Dorothea for creating WordGirl and introducing our girls to a strong, smart and word-loving role model!

To read more about WordGirl and play some fun games go to: https://pbskids.org/wordgirl/games/

And if you love Curious George check out this fun site: https://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/

Do you and your kids have a favorite character on WordGirl?

Photos courtesy of www.pbs.org

References:

Wikipedia.com: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordGirl

Phone Interview with Dorothea Gillim May 21, 2013