A B See

January 1, 2016
Hundreds of tiny, subtly raised images to study and name make a lovely, tactile alphabet book that can be enjoyed far longer than most ABC books. Each letter, formed by arranging several embossed pictures of related objects together in the shape of a large block capital, is presented with one line of text according to a simple formula. A creature is doing something with (or to) an item with the same initial letter. So, "Alligator admires an apple." The alligator and apple are prominent in the letter design, but 33 other "A" items are also embedded in the capital A: accordion, artwork, alarm clock, Africa, anemone, etc. This device is repeated for each letter, with most letters occupying an entire page. D and E, H and I, M and N, and U and V share pages; the already-tiny embedded images are even smaller for those letters; there appears to be no logic to this forcing letters onto shared pages beyond, possibly, a budgetary one. Adding eight more pages would have made for a far more elegant book. All the letters are repeated on a double-page spread at the end of the book. The final six pages list all the objects included in each letter design. While the tiny images will make this a challenge for young babies, the large number of objects to identify means they will return to it again and again as their vocabularies expand. (Board book. 1-4)

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July 1, 2015

PreS-This handsome and rich abecedarian has a single alliterative line of text for each letter, which boldly appears center stage on the page. Each uppercase letter is formed by an assemblage of stamps, woodcuts, and marginalia showcasing words that begin with the featured letter. For example, "Bear bounces a basketball" appears on the "B" page, which is comprised of images for 39 "B" words to identify (they are all listed at the back). This search-and-find vocabulary-builder will provide hours of fun poring over images and possibly inspire young makers to craft assemblages of their own.

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