An Excessive Alphabet

July 15, 2016
In this alphabet book, letter identification is combined with a seek-and-find game.The subtitle, "Avalanches of As to Zillions of Zs," sets the stage. The opening page depicts a landslide of items beginning with the letter A (ark, animals, anchor, etc.) along with many A's, both upper- and lowercase. The following pages follow suit. For example, "Cans of Cs" shows a closet out of which spills a slew of cans containing both C's and C words: cow, couch, crab, camel, crayons, etc. As with most alphabet books, some pages work better than others. It will take a sophisticated eye to figure out that the "Endless Es" are a series of diminishing-in-perspective squares being painted by an artist at his easel. Most of the descriptions indicate some kind of quantity or collection. "Flocks of Fs" fly in the sky; "Globs of Gs" ooze gummily; "Oodles of Os" float in bowls of soup; "Quarts of Qs," oddly, listen to a string quartet. The "King-size Ks" that loom over a king, kiwi, and box of Kleenex are something of an anomaly, but kids aren't likely to notice. The most challenging is likely the "Herds of Hs," with lower- and uppercase H's marked like Holsteins standing in a field. The only legend is on the endpapers, which lists each of the objects in a running litany. Young puzzle fans will find that this teases their perceptions and taunts their imaginations. (Picture book. 6-9)

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