Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Alphabet Week -- 5 Days of Great Alphabet Books, Day 2



Here's an alphabet book that actually tells a story. Letters thrown at the reader with nothing to ground them just don't "stick" the way letters embedded in a story do. For this reason, I've always favored story-based alphabet books over those which are more random. Like The Alphabet Book, by PD Eastman -- reeeaallllly not a fave.



Kipper's A to Z; An Alphabet Adventure has lovely watercolor pictures, engaging and mostly familiar characters, and an actual story that gives the alphabet some context. Kipper and his friend Pig are looking for animals...first they find an Ant, which they put in a Box, then a Caterpillar...and so on through the alphabet. There's a Zebra, the quintessential Z animal, who keeps showing up at the wrong time, giving kids the opportunity to set him straight. It's a nice little ramble through the alphabet and it shows both upper and lowercase letters, which may be helpful to older kids.

If you're looking for something to introduce the alphabet, particularly to younger children, this is a good choice because of the coherent story. It probably won't fly with older (like Kindergarten) kids, but for the preschool and toddler crowd it's a good one.

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