Customer Reviews

Antler, Bear, Canoe: A Northwoods Alphabet Year

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I love alphabet books and I love all things referencing nature and life in the northern woodlands. This book has various elements that are unique to an alphabet book. First, the A starts off with January and goes through the year with Z ending with December. This is noted at the bottom of the page and the month/season is depicted in the illustration. For example A for Antler shows a snowy landscape in the back. Another example is August showeing the time that beavers build a dam in their Pond (P). I love the seasonal element especially since I feel our young children are growing up with only commercial holidays as the indicators of our seasons (locked inside air conditioned buildings away from nature, etc.). The illustrations are woodcuts that were then colored with paint and they are beautiful and fun. (Can you tell I am also a woodcut admirer?) The illustrations are sometimes lifestyle representing such as E as Evening depicting parent and children reading and writing by lantern-light and Q as Quiet near the edge of the pond. (These illustrations are not purely animal or nature references.) Some modern day machines also are represented by G as Grader and O as Outboard (boat motor) so this is not purely an old-fashioned or timeless depiction. Letters are represented in woodcut with both capital and lower case print style and the word features woodcut as well with the first letter of the word in capital and the rest in lower case. A short paragraph of usually two sentences describes the scene and often times includes personal experiences of the author.

Reminds me of "A Farmers Alphabet" which represents old-fashioned life in Vermont for its lovely woodcut illustrations and clearly marked letters that are good for teaching young children the alphabet.

This author has a similar book on counting which I plan to read and buy in the future called "Gathering". I am hoping it is as wonderful as this book.