ABCs Part 2

Remember the ABC binge we went on last week? Well, this is Part 2 — more Alphabet Books!!!

Where to begin?!

Alphabatics is by Suse MacDonald and was published by Bradbury Press in 1986. It’s an interesting kind of puzzle book. Each page has a letter that is transformed in 4 pictures from it’s letterness to a picture – like the “j” on the cover. The “j” becomes a jack in the box!  It’s pretty clever.

A Nonsense Alphabet by Edward Lear was originally published in 1952 by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. The book contains reproductions of drawings that Mr Lear did in 1880 and gave to a boy who kept them in his possession for many years, only coming to light it 1951. Then they were acquired by the Victoria & Albert Museum. The book is printed on water color paper in black and white so that children can color them! Isn’t that cool?! The text is hand written in cursive and a little hard to read, but the verses are all printed at the end of the book. “A” was a lovely apple which was very red and round, It tumbled off an apple tree and fell upon the ground.”

Arf! Beg! Catch! Dogs From A to Z is by Henry Horenstein. It was published by Scholastic in 1999. It’s a happy, photographic look at dogs. Each page is a letter and a picture and word to correspond to that letter. “A” is for Arf! “B” is for Beg. “C” is for Catch. A simple, cute book.

Appaloosa Zebra, A Horse Lover’s Alphabet is by Jessie Haas with pictures by Margot Apple. It was published by Greenwillow Books in 2002. A little girl dreams about having a horse farm when she is older. And imagines all the different kinds of horses she will have – from Appaloosas to Zebras. It’s a cute book with fun illustrations. If you like horses, this is a book for you!!

Eye Spy, A Book of Alphabet Puzzles is by Linda Bourke. Published by Chronicle Books in 1991. This is a very clever word puzzle book! Each page has 4 pictures that create a kind of riddle using either homophones or homonyms. Like the cover picture that shows 3 animal “eyes” and then an “eye” from a fishing fly. And that fly is a clue to the next pages riddle. So that the book becomes a continuous chain! So very clever and thought full! I love this book. I think it is my favorite of this bunch. The discussions that the pictures could lead into I think could be very imaginative!

We still have more to come from our Alphabet Binge. But I’ll save the rest for another day. I’ll let you ponder on these for now. Go and check them out!! And then let me know some more of your favorites!!

For more on Edward Lear you might check out Project Gutenberg. They have a lot of his nonsense stuff.
And here is a Joyful Ted talk from Al Seckel about how our eyes can sometimes fool us.
And a website full of homonym fun.