Customer Reviews

The Graphic Alphabet (Caldecott Honor Book)

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I'm torn! Is this a children's book or something I put on my coffee table? It's that good! Instead of cute pictures in bright colors representing letters, Pelletier takes a graphically unusual look at the alphabet using everything from color and graphic images to different varnishes to get across his message. The colors are bright with a black background that jump off the page. The unique images are clever and engaging. One of my favorites is the x-ray of a hand with crossing fingers for X. Have a child; know someone who does; looking for something interesting as an ice breaker? Take a look at this book!

Although I did enjoy the art in this book, wasn't this book originally called "The Z Was Zapped" by the genius author/illustrator Chris Van Allsburg? Just by adding color doesn't make this a revolutionary book. My kids love the mystery and anticipation that comes with Mr. Van Allsburg's story, and I love how it challenges and promotes that higher level of thinking and word construction. Thank you, but I'll be sticking with Chris.

I wondered how could an alphabet book win a Caldecott Honor. I examined this book with my class of 10 year olds. They loved it and it inspired them to write their own. This book isn't just for little ones learning their alphabet!

This is an alphabet book for children in which each letter is coupled with a word that is graphicly illustrated by the letter. For example, the letter A is accompanied by the word avalanche and one leg of the letter is collapsing as in an avalanch. The book was a 1997 Caldecott Honor book (i.e., a runner-up to the Medal winner) for best illustrations in a book for children. Children will enjoy identifying the letter with the "concept" representing it.

In an epilogue to his 1997 Caldecott Honor Book The Graphic Alphabet, David Pelletier explains his aim: "the illustration of the letterform had to retain the natural shape of the letter as well as represent the meaning of the word." The letter does not simply stand for the word, it becomes the word. So, a "D" represents the devil, by resting on its round side with serifs accentuated into horns; three "O"'s hang from strings as ornaments; "X" is represented in an x-ray image of crossed finger-bones. Each of the letters receives one page, on which the letter appears within a black box, with the word it represents printed below. The bright colors against the black background give the illustrations an intense and dramatic mood, with a sharp quality; the glossy paper plays up the clean lines of the work. Some of the illustrations are obscure and the letters so altered and distorted as to be unrecognizable; sometimes the illustrations seem a bit like an exercise for a graphic design class and not an instructional tool. This book is certainly not appropriate for making the concept of letters concrete for young children, though children who are newly able to recognize letterforms may appreciate extending their knowledge with this book.

This is kind of rare. A graphic designer without any children's book credentials to his name, creates an alphabet book in 1996 that (in his own words), "had to retain the natural shape of the letter as well as represent the meaning of the word", by using good design. So he produces the book, it wins the incredibly prestigious Caldecott Honor, and Pelletier never makes another children's book again. Now, creating kids' books is an addictive activity. You may start out with the best intentions in the world and you may tell yourself, "I'll just do this one book to get it out of my system". But after that first book garners some attention you find yourself making another and another and another. It would have made all the sense in the world for Pelletier to follow up his award winning book with one about, oh say, numbers. Yet as of this review (written in that overblown year of 2005) this particular graphic designer hasn't been any more tempted to return to the heady world of kiddie lit. Instead, he leaves us with this peculiar alphabet book that is perfect for adults who love design but probably downright bizarre to those children who are trying to learn their a, b, c's.

In this book, Pelletier takes each letter of the alphabet and displays it with a word starting with that letter. For example, A is given the word Avalanche. Looking at the letter, you see a gigantic letter A (the one on the cover) with pieces of it breaking off and falling into an abyss. For the letter N we see noodles filling a page, all looking like little lowercase N's. Get the idea? Good, because it gets a little obscure sometimes. For example, this being a book of good design, L is of course going to stand for Lines. Two 90 degree angles made up of thin lines mirror one another. In pictures such as this, kids are going to have to already know their letters to discover where they're hidden on the pages. Fortunately, Pelletier gives them a heads up right from the start. His B, standing for Bounce, looks more like a softened M than a B on its side. And it definitely takes some squinting and frowns to make the R for Rip look like much more than a gash in a page.

Certain picture books are designed with adults in mind. There should be an entire genre of to-be-read-only-by-adults alphabet books out there. None of this is to say that the book isn't lovely. The visual pleasure that comes from the complimentary strands of color in Knot or the skeletal crossing of the fingers in X-ray are lovely. As a book who's pictures are done entirely on a computer, however, this hardly deserved to win an award for great illustration. It's pleasing to the eye but from reviews already written about this book, its best for kids ages 10 and up. And therefore useless as an alphabet book.

Admittedly, "The Graphic Alphabet" is probably directly responsible for some of the more original alphabet books out there. Things like, "The Hidden Alphabet" by Laura Vaccaro Seeger, "The Turn Around Upside Down Alphabet Book" by Lisa Campbell Ernst, or even Stephen T. Johnson's, "Alphabet City". Unlike these, however, "The Graphic Alphabet" is an example of useless design. This is design as art, not as something utilitarian (like actually learning the alphabet). I'm sure Mr. Pelletier has many sterling qualities and the book is a lovely thing to look at, no question. But if you're buying it for a kid, give it to one already enrolled in a class that looks at the influences of Le Corbusier and Mondrian. Better still, pair it with Mark Gonyea's, "A Book About Design" for kids. This is a great resource but only if used in the correct way.

I got this book at a garage sale, and looking at it I would have thought the same thing as many of the reviewers here who seem to feel that it would be useless for kids trying to learn the alphabet and should be reserved for older children and adults interested in graphic design. One reviewer pointed out, for example, that "His B, standing for Bounce, looks more like a softened M than a B on its side."

With those thoughts in mind, I had put the boook aside for use much later, but my 15-month old son soon found it and fell in love with it. A month later, it's one of his 3 or 4 favorite books, and one of only two alphabet books he is willing to spend any time looking at at all. He is completely enchanted by it and asks for me to read it to him about twice a day. Since we started doing so a few weeks ago, he has started repeating many of the words back to me, and excitedly draws many of the letters in the air with his finger or hand while looking at it.

While it's true that the forms of some of the letters aren't made glaringly obvious by their graphic designs (e.g. the B), the word associated with each letter (in that case "Bounce") is printed in a clear serif font on each page, so I simply utilize them as well when reading the book to my son. So for B, for example, I'll point to letter at the beginning of the word, then the word, and say "B is for Bounce." Then I repeat "Bounce. B. Boing! Boing!" as I repeatedly outline the graphic representation of it. He loves it and he's learning fast. For example, because of this book he makes the letter "J" in the air when he wants me to show him someone juggling (or to attempt to do it myself).

This experience is just one of many that proves to me that we too often underestimate children. Kids are smarter than we think, and are often interested in much more sophisticated things than we expect.

Ideal for teaching the alphabet to older beginner ELLs learning the sounds and letters of English. The words for each letter lend themselves to TPR.

Pelletier, David. The Graphic Alphabet. New York: Orchard, 1996.
ISBN: 0-531-36001-6
Award: Caldecott Honor Book


The Graphic Alphabet by David Pelletier is a book that I will definitely suggest to art teachers. What has been done with each letter is phenomenal. It kept my attention as an adult just by the design of the letters, contrast of the vibrant colors and motion or actions the letters themselves suggested. Art deals with the use of line, space, color, shape, perspective and texture. On each page of this book many of these aspects are being addressed, if not all. The letters seem to be 3 dimensional because of the design and colors used. Motion is suggested by the placement of some of the letters, i.e. the y is placed on its side as if it were yawning. The "B" bounces and is made by using a ball. The text used with the "y" is "yawn". The reader can see tiny teeth inside the mouth. Motion and movement are also suggested by the way the lines of the letters are drawn, circle, curl, etc. The "H" is placed over a dark sky with the word "hover" used as the text. The perspectives of this book are clearly for an older student rather than an elementary child. The pictures are glossy which add to the vibrant and dramatic color aspects of the book. Some of the letters seem to have texture, even though they do not. It is an illusion. I found this book intriguing to say the least.

i love typography and lettering, and I try to expose my kids to good design as much as possible. This book is quite terrible and a lot of the letter designs look like "last-minute, project-is-due-tomorrow" executions. I have it hidden under a bed, no joke.