In the Snow (1995)

In the Snow by Huy Vodun Lee (1995) is a narrative introduction to the Chinese language. The first page lists  five Mandarin Chinese characters alongside pictorial representations, English translations, and pronunciations. The story is about a mother and child’s walk in a snowy landscape. “The ground is a canvas of white” on which Xiao Ming and her son practice writing. She begins with tree, then doubles this to write forest. Then “three strokes next to the character for forest” creates the word pond. This gentle stroll on a winter day gave me some appreciation for how different the English and Chinese languages are from one another. I wondered what effect language has upon how speakers perceive and think about the world. This is a large book and the illustrations fill every page with wide expanses of snow dotted by trees, children, and wildlife. The jacket flap indicates the pictures are cut paper art. 

Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match (2011)

 Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match by Monica Brown is about a child facing cultural expectations of sameness. The insightful title captures one crucial quality of the main character—Marisol is multiracial. She has brown skin and fiery red hair. She also chooses green polka dots and purple stripes in the same outfit. She loves peanut butter and jelly burritos and cursive beside print. She’s “a creative, unique, bilingual, Peruvian-Scottish-American, soccer-playing artist and simply marvelous!”

 On the first page, we learn an essential message: people tell Marisol she doesn’t match. Family, friends, and a classroom teacher disparage her difference. Later, Ms. Apple may recognize her own blind spot when she validates Marisol’s multiracial heritage and creative choices. 

 Sara Palacious’ mixed media illustrations have a playful quality for the young reader. The story is in English and Spanish with vocabulary that’s not challenging. Maybe this book will help children see the conformity they learn at a young age.

This book is read aloud online in English by The Reel Read Kidz Corner. It’s read aloud in Spanish by Harmony At Home.

 My Picture Book Talk lesson for this story is here. 

Alphabatics (1986)

 Alphabatics bye Suse MacDonald (1986) is another alphabet book with its own point of view. This alphabet book has drawings emerging, step by step from each letter. The capital letter A flips upside down and turns into an ark with animals. The lowercase B enlarges to transform it’s negative space into a balloon. The letter C flips on its side to become the smiling face of a clown. This book is a visual treat. It earned a Caldecott honor for her ingenuity. I’m wondering if looks like this would interest students learning English as a second language.

In the you  tube video by ABC Kinderteach, pronunciations are not consistent for some letters.The A is pronounced like in cat, but the picture is an r-colored  sound  in ark. The G is pronounced with the hard sound in isolation and then the picture is a giraffe. The X is pronounced with a k-like sound, the picture is a xylophone. 

Riana’s  Book  Channel  doesn’t get into this problem because the child reading the book doesn’t make sounds for the isolated letters.

My First a b c (1993)

 My First a b c by Jane Bunting (1993) is a product of Dorling Kindersley Limited, so it's practically guaranteed to be first rate. This is a large book of photographs organized by letters of the English alphabet. On each page, right in the middle, is a large lower-case letter in a bright color and wood grain finish. Photographs surround the letter. For example, The letter "g" has photographs of a goldfish, glasses, giraffe, guitar, gorilla, game, green paint, glove, and goose. The name of each picture appears in black typed font; my guess is it is Times New Roman. There is a border along each two-page spread. Inside the border a cute bug-like creature lines up capital letters that it pulls from a toy wagon. This book is large enough to for an adult to show a small group of children. What a beautiful book to elicit conversation. 

Elephant Alphabet (2006)

 Elephant Alphabet by Gene Yates (2006) is an amusing look at letters. I like the consistency in the way the elephants are drawn. Each is a stocky, boxy pachyderm, so the leap to orthography isn't too large. Each letter accompanies a sentence with plenty of alliteration. "J elephant jumps for joy and drinks jugs of juice." The letters appear in color, in this case all of the "j"s are purple. And, believe it or not, Yates's picture has an elephant jumping into the shape of a "j"! It takes a lively imagination to produce twenty-six memorable situations for an elephant to celebrate each letter of the alphabet! This is a board book that very young readers will enjoy again and again.  

The Furry Animal Alphabet Book (1990)

In The Furry Animal Alphabet Book, you'll learn what animal begins with the letter X! Did you know that there's another animal besides the yak that begins with Y? I bet you don't know what a Zorilla is. Jerry Pallotta and Edgar Stewart's book of facts and illustrations will awaken a reader's interest in wildlife. "Jackrabbits are hares that have really long ears. . . .The big ears help them to hear even the slightest sounds. The ears also act like a car radiator to cool them off when it is hot out." Each page of this paperback features a letter and an animal. The letters are in upper and lower case. The animals look realistic; however, they have little environmental context. Despite the variety of perspectives on how to teach reading, I feel alphabet books like this one continue to invite children in to investigate the written word. 

Whose House is This: A Lift-and-Look ABC Book (1998)

      On each page of Whose House is This: A Lift-and-Look ABC Book by Graham Percy (1998) capital letters lift and reveal an indoor scene with text. Lifting the B, we see the inside a two-story cottage and "Bill is a builder. He likes to build bird houses for his feathered friends.” These letters are decorated as cottages and homes within a landscape that varies from snowcapped mountains to fields to beach to railroad tracks etc. Each page is framed with colorful letters and objects. I love the complexity of each page. A child will spend long minutes taking in the details. This book is unique in that it is a large board book. It’s hard for me to give this book away, but I know the family receiving it will enjoy it. 

     LOL-Loving Our Learning has Alphabet Lift The Flap Books - Sample. Handy Teaching Tools has Alphabet Clip Art: Gumballs. Cathy Journey has Peek-a-Boo Windows.

Someone New (2018)

      Someone New by Anne Sibley O’Brien (2018) uses speech bubbles to replace traditional dialogue. It's an alternative for illustrating what people say in social situations. The point of view in this story is first person, but the speaker changes. I haven't seen this in any other book. When we turn the page to a new scene, it's implied that the narrative belongs to the new main character. Furthermore, the text is internal dialogue, what a child is thinking. I found this took extra effort to understand. Someone New is a book about what three children think when welcoming a peer from a different country who do not speak English. Although they feel unsure of how to help, all three find successful ways to  make friends with their new classmates.

     Exceptionalities has Someone New - Response Tickets. 

In The Tall, Tall Grass (1991)

      In The Tall, Tall Grass by Denise Fleming (1991) appears at first glance to be a simplistic book of rhyme intended for the toddler. Brightly colored creatures leap, dance, fly, and slither across two-page spreads of grass. Just a few words precisely describe their actions. Dilys Evans' book Show & Tell: Exploring the Fine Art of Children's Book Illustration explains how these images are extraordinary. On page 125 is a sequence of six photographs that show the complex process by which Fleming produces pictures. "Fleming's first step is to make the paper itself. . . the paper is the medium from which the artwork is created." If I understand correctly, colored paper pulp is layered to create her artwork. The results are amazing. Wouldn't it be fun if every picture book had backmatter that celebrated the illustrator's process!

      Yulia Kotets has Visualizing - In the Tall, Tall Grass. 

The City ABC Book (2001)

      The City ABC Book (2001) by Zoran Milich is a wordless alphabet book. The pictures are black and white photographs of places in a city. They're altered to highlight, in red, a shape that resembles an English letter. For example, lowercase B is a portion of a vertical post and tire on a playground; C is written on the cover of a drain in a sidewalk; F is part of a utility pole. Sometimes a picture illustrates a capital letter and sometimes a small letter. 

     The author dedicates this book "For my mother, who has taught me to see. For my daughter, who I hope I can teach to see." To me, the black and white nature of the photographs directs our eyes to damage such as a broken sidewalk, worn stairs, aging brick, and cracks in a fence. I find the palette dark and unsettling. Unless you feel comfortable in an aging city landscape, you may find these visuals unpleasant. I love the concept but not the execution. There is a 2005 revision of this book by the same author that looks to have color photographs which might be more enjoyable.

     Songs and Stories for the Classroom Teacher has Town Mouse and Country Mouse. My lesson for The Adventures of Taxi Dog is about the city. Miss Sandy Lewis has a city map.

Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? (1996)

      Onomatopoeia is a main idea in Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?. Dr. Seuss orients children to environmental sounds and their corresponding letter representations in this Book of Wonderful Noises. The journey is cumulative, so after considering the sounds of a cow, bees, corks, horse's feet, shoes,  a rooster, rain, and a train, all of these sounds are reviewed in a full page of noisy pleasure:"MOO MOO BUZZ BUZZ POP POP POP EEK EEK HOO HOO KLOPP KLOPP KLOPP DIBBLE DIBBLE DOPP DOPP COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO" At these moments of review, children practice short-term working memory while reveling in phonology of English. 

     SKH Little Learners has Mr. Brown Can Moo - Onomatopoeia.  GlitterInKindy has a Read Aloud lesson plan. Desiree Q Luong has Phonological Processes.

P Is for Pterodactyl (2018)

     What an unusual alphabet book! Wikipedia states "The book sold out of its first print run of 10,800 copies the day it was published." P Is for Pterodactyl by Raj Haldar & Chris Carpenter is The Worst Alphabet Book Ever." As the title implies, this book has fun with English spelling, for example "G is for Gnocchi." The text and illustrations extend this unique point of view: "The gnome yells, 'Waiter! There's a bright white gnat nibbling on my gnocchi!'" 

     Once Upon First Grade has Super Secret Spy Silent Letters. Tammy Teach has a Silent Letter K Crossword Worksheet. There are so many alphabet book materials at Teachers Pay Teachers; I wonder if any of them compare the uncommon perspective of P Is for Pterodactyl.