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November 02, 2006
Alphabet Rescue
I like to think of myself as a fan of Audrey Wood. I love lots of her books. I use Piggies, King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub, The Napping House, Silly Sally, and The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear in my storytimes all the time. There they are on the Story Shelf, probably the most books we have by any one author.
But I hated last year’s release, The Deep Blue Sea.
It’s not that The Deep Blue Sea was a particularly bad book, but it did seem an uninspired effort for someone so talented. And the computer-generated illustrations by Audrey’s son Bruce just looked so computer-generated. It was disappointing.
Then a few months ago, I saw that Audrey and Bruce’s newest release was going to be an alphabet book. I thought that maybe I would declare it something that doesn’t exist in my world – like picture books by Madonna and the film version of How to Eat Fried Worms that came out this past summer – and that I’d just avoid reading it and experiencing the disappointment that would surely come of the combination of two of my nemeses: alphabet books and art that looks too digital. But then there it was in my pile of books the other day. “Look away!” I thought, “Put it back on the shelf before it’s too late!” But the cover was so cute. I opened it up.
And what a delightful book I found! Shunning the usual “A is for this, and B is for that” formula that only really worked for Edward Gorey in The Gashlycrumb Tinies, the Woods take a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom approach and let the letters have an adventure. Here, the lower-case letters want to be firefighters, but upper-case Chief F says they’re too small. Undaunted, the little letters fix up their own fire truck and go about their business helping other letters. The story is empowering and fun, and the art that seemed so stilted in The Deep Blue Sea is rich and vibrant here. Letters flit about all the illustrations, sometimes making up pertinent words, sometimes not. When the little letters hear a noise in the tree, we can see that it’s the letters “c-a-t” that are stuck and want to get down. Each spread invites and rewards inspection, and the story comes to a satisfying conclusion when the lower-case letters prove that they’re useful after all. Even better, this is a story that even someone who doesn’t care a whit about learning the alphabet can enjoy. This will even satisfy all those children coming in demanding books about trucks and firefighters. Not only did I decide that this book could exist in my world: I decided that our library needed multiple copies.
So many things in life are disappointing. It's good to find things that aren't.
Posted by adrienne at November 2, 2006 08:40 AM
Comments
My nephews have an alphabet book about airplanes that sometimes uses letters in the middle of words to satisfy the alphabetical requirement for difficult letters like X and Q. Sometimes it uses nomenclature, like "D is for DC-3."
It's like it was written by people too lazy to do ten minutes of research. There's also a picture of a guy who crashed a radio controlled plane and he looks just like the Thomas, Wendy's founder.
Posted by: Chuck at November 2, 2006 05:17 PM
I like The Napping House, I suppose I should check out the others.
Posted by: tonderdo at November 2, 2006 06:04 PM
that was Dave Thomas, Wendy's founder
Posted by: chuck at November 2, 2006 08:08 PM
COLON EMERGENCY!!
Please HELP!! My supervisor wants me to add colons at the end of each one of these clauses listed:
-The leadership gifts of Society members demonstrate their committment to Crouse Hospital as their generosity provides
-Please enroll me/us as a member(s) of the Crouse Health Society at the following level
-I/we will fulfill this commitment as follows
Each of these is followed by a bulleted list. Am I wrong or do they need colons? Doesn't Rule # 7 from The Elements of Style apply to these.
Posted by: Kelly Scroger at November 3, 2006 09:06 AM
I'm working at the L&B today (ALLEGEDLY working on the book, as opposed to blogging -- but at least I'm not watching disc 2 of season 2 of Home Movies, which is what I was sorely tempted to do), and I don't have my Strunk & White with me so I can't refer to the rule. I would put a colon in before a bulleted list, though, but that could just be me being wrong.
What does Chuck say??? You are both more adept with the punctuation rules than I.
Posted by: adrienne at November 3, 2006 11:52 AM
This sounds like a follow-up to _Alphabet Adventure_ and _Alphabet Mystery_, which I wasn't crazy about but my son adored.
Posted by: web at November 3, 2006 02:44 PM
I think you're right. I have both of them on my "to read" list because somehow I missed them the first time (or perhaps I read them and just don't remember...).
Posted by: adrienne at November 3, 2006 03:06 PM