Customer Reviews

The Absolutely Awful Alphabet

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I chose to read this book for a Children's Lit. class in college. It was one of the most amusing alphabet books I found. The pictures are absolutely great. The book contains tons of volcabulary words (ie. ferocious, jabbering, and quizzical) for those who already know their ABCs. It could be used in the classroom by having kids make up their own monsters using letters assigned to them. Then they could all be compiled to make an alphabet book written and illustrated by the whole class.

Overall, I loved this book. Kids will have a lot of fun with this one!

Many alphabet books are aggressively "real". They feel they have to be in order to illustrate what the letter stands for. That's cool.

This is different. The author decided to make each individual letter its own character. It's own VILE character, that is. (V is a vegetable vampire, obviously our favorite!) Each letter is in some way influenced by the one next in line... often picking on that one, but sometimes annoyed by it.

The illustrations are suitably "awful", full of teeth and glares (while still being recognizeably letters). And the vocabulary...! A far cry from apples and balls and cats, here the action is all in the adjectives (and sometimes verbs). We get arrogant, voracious, envious, grotesque, cantankerous... well! If this doesn't improve your child's vocabulary, I'll personally send you your money back! (No, no I won't.)

Every library needs this book. I think I'll even buy a few more copies for my niece to give to her pre-k class this year, or her kindergarten class next year!

Edit: Still adore this book, just wanted to mention something I noticed on re-read. All the K- words for K (a Knave) are Kn- words. So maybe that's a little bit confusing for the younger set.

So far this book seems pretty fun to read...even for me :) I like the way each letter ties into the next and hope that my daughter catches on quicker while learning the alphabet.

This well illustrated and eye catching alphabet book is like no other. Children will be excited by the colorful and unique drawings while the reader will be thrilled to be using unsual vocabulary to descibe the extraordinary adjective and nouns. This is one book that can be repeatedly read for fun without falling asleep!

I'd have to agree with the previous reviewer that this is a great book.

I really enjoy reading it to our son, who, with this book's help, has articulated his first letter (O). It is enjoyable for adults and captivating for children.

The pictures are great, and I am very impressed that the letters drawn in the title are drawn differently to those throughout the book. Just detail is quite unusual in this digital age. The Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddleduck books these days use the same pictures over and over again, just cut & pasted into different contexts.

Well done Mordicai Gerstein! 5 stars! Thoroughly recommended!

I am a preschool teacher in a public school district where it is a challenge, sometimes, to teach children to treat each other kindly.

I bought this book, here at Amazon, where I could only see the front and back covers, along with the author's touching dedication to his wife. Based on the reviews, it seemed to be a great book with rich vocabulary. The clue that the book would not serve me well should have been in the title which used the word "awful," but trusting 8 glowing reviews, I started to read the book to my class. Right away, I started skipping over words, like "knucklehead." Children learn words like that VERY quickly!

I seriously do not understand why any publisher would publish such a book for young children. I have spent the first few months of this school year, teaching children words like, "respect", "gratitude", "kindness", "compassion", etc. I was not going to have the children start calling each other the "vile" words, used in this book! I showed the book to the teacher next door to my class, and she said it was the most "negative" book she had ever seen! I concur! It is a sad state of the world if others do not see this and think that such a book is good for young children! Perhaps, we need a title like, The Absolutely Awesome Alphabet that uses positive words!

BTW, I would rate this book a 0, if the system accepted it! The book may be considered creative, but it is not suited for the picture book audience it serves!

This book is a lot of fun to read. The monsters are delightfully awful and the vocabulary is often advanced, which makes it different and fun compared to other ABC books. We read it over and over in our house.
The only problem is that the K words are all Kn- words, which bothered me enough to deduct a star.

Requires quite a bit of vocabulary (or teaches it, if you like, but it requires quite a bit of thinking to explain what "cantankerous" means to a three-year-old

My 5 yr old daughter's favorite book. The focus is alliteration. Each letter is originally illustrated and has an interesting description.