ABC Books for Early Readers

C Is for Curious: An ABC of Feelings
Ages: 2 - 5 yrs.
Author: Woodleigh Marx Hubbard
Chronicle Books, $13.95 (Hardcover)

Raging dragons, leaping cows, and baseball-playing dogs come together in this zany collection that explores every feeling from A(ngry) to Z(ealous). Children will delight in guessing each emotion and in letting their imaginations run free as they make up stories to go along with each picture.

A Gardener's Alphabet
Ages: 4 yrs. - Up
Author: Mary Azarian
Houghton Mifflin, $16.00 (Hardcover)

A master of the hand-colored woodcut, artist Mary Azarian shares with the viewer (of any age) her love of gardens - both vegetable and flower - and the work and joy that goes into their cultivation. Though there are appropriate words for each letter, it is the lovingly detailed pictures that reward our close attention.

The Handmade Alphabet
Ages: 4 - 6 yrs.
Author: Laura Rankin
Puffin, $6.99 (Paperback)

This imaginative, beautifully illustrated book presents the signing alphabet with astonishing clarity. Each drawing depicts the correct position and hand motions for the manual alphabet.

From Acorn to Zoo
Ages: 4 - 8 yrs.
Author: Satoshi Kitamuras
Sunburst (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), $4.95 (Paperback)

From Acorn to Zoo and Everything in Between in Alphabetical Order is newfangled fun - every person, animal, and object illustrated has a slightly quizzical expression and there's a bright off-center question on every page.

Agent A to Agent Z
Ages: 4 - 8 yrs.
Author: Andy Rash
Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books, $16.95 (Hardcover)

The author has taken the cagey step of involving young readers in a spy mission that can only be solved by becoming a better and more discriminating reader. The lead Spy in the book is dispatched to find a missing Agent who does not use his or her assigned letter. On the way, we meet all the other agents and the interesting espionage activities they engage in with words and great humor.

An Edward Lear Alphabet
Ages: 4 - 8 yrs.
Author: Edward Lear, Illustrator: Vladimir Radunsky
Harpercollins, $14.99 (Hardcover)

Illustrator Vladimir Radunsky has given the inspired nonsense-verse of Edward Lear a modern look and feel through collage and his own illustrations. Early readers are sure to enjoy the Lear's alliterations in phrases such as "F was once a little fish, Fishy Wishy Squishy Fishy in a dishy Little fish."

Alphabet RiddlesAges: 5 - 7 yrs.
Author: Susan Royce, Illustrator: Doug DuBosque
Peel Productions, $13.95 (Hardcover)

This is a pure delight - an intelligent, engaging collection of 26 alphabet riddles for children who already know the letters of the alphabet per se. The listener (or beginning reader) is given the first and last letter of a familiar word and then provided with a quartet of felicitously rhymed clues. Adults as well as children will be inspired to join in the fun.

Pigs From A to Z
Ages: 5 - 7 yrs.
Author: Arthur Geisert
Houghton Mifflin Children's Books, $7.95 (Paperback)

On every page of this assemblage of very strange etchings, you'll find five forms of successive letters of the alphabet and seven rather peculiar pigs. Interspersed in a sort of fugal mode are the preceding and following letters as well. With intricate interweavings - of idea, text, and images - the simple abecedarian becomes a sort of porcine musical-mystical metaphor.

M Is For Music
Ages: 5 - 8 yrs.
Author: Kathleen Krull    Illustrator: Stacy Innerst
Harcourt Trade Publishers/Harcourt Children's Books, $16.00 (Hardcover)

Music and the alphabet have always gone together. Don't kids learn their letters by singing the ABCs? But you've never seen--or heard--a musical alphabet like this one. Beloved tunes. Unusual instruments. Legendary virtuosos. From anthems to zydeco, the language of music and the music of language harmonize in one superb symphony. It's a funky fusion for songsters of all ages!
Book Description

Ashanti to Zulu
Ages: 5 - 8 yrs.
Author: Margaret Musgrove, Illustrator: Leo and Diane Dillon
Dial Books for Young Readers, $5.99 (Paperback)

Artists Leo and Diane Dillon won their second consecutive Caldecott Medal for this stunning ABC of African culture. Twenty-six distinct African tribal customs are beautifully illustrated and introduced.

I Spy: An Alphabet in Art
Ages: 5 - 8 yrs.
Selected By: Lucy Micklethwait
Harper Collins/William Morrow, $9.95 (Paperback)

Twenty-six spendidly reproduced museum paintings fill the pages of this beautiful alphabet book. Children and adults alike will find themselves exploring these pages for objects beginning with the appropriate letter.