Vivid Vocabulary

"William has a nice personality," offered one of the members of my fourth grade book group.
"Nice is such a boring word. Can anyone think of more interesting words than nice to describe William's personality in the book, The Castle in the Attic?" I challenged.
It took only a moment of thinking before words started to jump forth. Friendly, helpful, kind, caring, nurturing, loyal are a few of the words that painted a more specific picture of William. I offered the word affable to the choices. The meaning of this word was unknown to the members of the group. We talked about the meaning and thought of ways the word could apply to our own lives and people we knew. The discussion then veered back to William. Is he a friendly, helpful and affable boy? Are there other aspects of his personality that we could examine? Morgann offered pessimistic. We talked a lot about the meaning of this word and its opposite, optimism. A lively discussion as to our own orientation as pessimists or optimists ensued and then the question arose as to whether William is a pessimist or optimist. He was pessimistic about whether he could be happy without his long time nanny, Mrs. Phillips in his life. As we read Chapter Four will we find that he is also able to be optimistic?
Fourth grade is reading three fantasy books, The Castle in the Attic, The Far-Away Mountain and Into the Land of the Unicorns. The authors incorporate vivid vocabulary to describe the setting and characters in order to help the reader to envision the life in the particular fantasy environment of each book. I would love for students and teachers to comment on vivid words that have been discussed to describe a character or setting, either generated by the students or teacher or found in one of the books. If parents have read any of these books, please feel comfortable sharing descriptive words also.
I will be writing more about not only fourth grade exploration of vivid vocabulary but thoughts connecting to other grades also.