An alluring story about the allure of stories. Max's brothers won't share their collections of stamps and coins with him. So Max starts a collection of his own, of words. He cuts them from newspapers and magazines and copies them from dictionaries, then starts piecing them together to form stories. His brothers are drawn in by the excitement and mystery of the words. Soon all three are sharing their collections as well as the realization that when stamps and coins are put together, you just have stamps and coins, "but when Max put his words together he had a thought."