The reader is asked to find numbers that are transformed into animal shapes and hidden in the illustrations.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Young Owl takes a sunset-to-dawn census of her habitat one nightAand learns to count in the process. As she enumerates "1 prairie dog sitting on a hill," "2 mice in the field," and so on, something magical happens: the animals and insects bear an uncanny resemblance to individual numerals, as do her own feathers. When Owl counts "8 spiders in a web," for example, the bodies of the octet of insects look just like the numeral eight, while Owl's underfeathers form the numerals one through eight. (A few of the examples are a stretch, including the moths' wings formed like the numeral four or the bats' numeral seven-shaped right wings.) By book's end, Owl's entire wingspan is made up of the numerals one through 10. MacDonald (Alphabatics) keeps her text spare, so the sheer inventiveness of her cut-paper illustrations takes center stage. Her Owl (whose stylized anatomy may remind children of puzzle pieces) swoops and soars through the full-bleed spreads, her wings taking on almost balletic aspects as she flies over moonlit fields and shimmering water and through the ever-changing night sky. Young audiences should have a fine time plumbing the subtle beauty and humor in MacDonald's richly textured landscapes. Ages 3-8. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
PreSchool-K-A young owl flies through the pages of this book and sees in the moonlit landscape a way to learn to count from 1 to 10. Each turn of the page reveals a group of animals whose shape matches the contour of a number: the curving tails of two mice form two 2s, the graceful silhouettes of five cranes form 5s, the bowed horns of the six big-horned sheep form 6s, and so on. The owl's body is created with a few brown-paper pieces in a simple mosaic. As each double-page spread introduces a new number, that number appears in a feathery row along her wings. Small children will enjoy looking for the pattern and relationship of shape to number. Each concept is shown reinforced several times: as a boldly colored numeral in one sentence, in order as the numbers are added in another, as a part of an animal, and in the owl's wings. Each number is also shown as a group of animals to count. The lines of the cut-paper and paint illustrations are simple enough so that what the owl sees can be seen clearly by children. As the numbers progress, the sky darkens, until the last page, which shows bright narcissus flowers holding 10 snails in the early morning light. This is an owlishly clever approach to counting and looking at number shapes, with plenty to talk about with children just learning to enumerate and to recognize numbers.
Kathie Meizner, Montgomery County Public Libraries, Chevy Chase, MD
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Kathie Meizner, Montgomery County Public Libraries, Chevy Chase, MD
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
I can't remember when I first knew I was an artist, because it was something that happened gradually.
I grew up in Glencoe, Illinois. My father was a professor at Northwestern University. My mother was a writer. We spent summers on an old farm in Weston, Vermont. My first art teacher was Churchill Ettinger, a Vermont artist who showed me how to visually transfer and translate the world before me to my paper. I can't remember how long I studied with him but by the time I entered college, I knew that art would be a focus in my life.
Since both of the colleges I attended were liberal arts schools, the courses offered were in the fine arts. No one talked about commercial art. It was considered a waste of one's talents.
I didn't think much about all that then. I just took courses: life drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics. I even made sculptures out of car parts. Nothing I tried felt quite right. I knew I was an artist but where did I fit?
After college, I married, and my husband Stuart and I settled in New York City. I decided to find a job using my artistic talents. After a number of interviews, I contacted Charles Halgren at Caru Studios and discovered that he hired artists to illustrate textbooks from time to time. That sounded like the perfect job for me, so I called him every two weeks for the next nine months. Finally, a new biology book came in and I was employed to do pen and ink illustrations for it.
I stayed at Caru for Five years. It was a wonderful time. The studio employed thirty artists, photographers, draftsmen, and even typesetters (This was before computers, and type was set by hand.). I learned all about the commercial side of art and discovered what a fascinating world it was.
Then my husband and I moved back to the family farm in Weston, Vermont, and took over a construction company. Our move came at a time when I was beginning to feel a lack of growth in my work. I'd done illustrations for all kinds of science texts and was uncertain what to do next. So I was enthusiastic about our move and our new business. I did some office work and architectural design work and drafting, and we raised two children.
However, as time went on, I needed new challenges. Somehow I was off the track. When my second child entered first grade, the time had come to quit my job and return to school. At first I thought I would become an architect. I was good at architectural design and as an architect I could continue to contribute to our business.
I looked around, found the Boston Architectural Center and went down for an interview. While I was visiting a class on that first evening, I realized very suddenly (it was like being hit by lightning) that it was not architecture that I wanted to study, it was illustration. So my search continued, but now I was looking at art schools.
I enrolled in two schools, the New England School of Art and Design and the Art Institute. By taking classes at both, I was able to organize three days of classes each week.
After I began my studies my focus shifted. I no longer wanted to draw things just as they were, I wanted to look at them in new ways: to abstract them. Bill Oakes, one of my teachers, gave me lots of encouragement in this new direction. He wanted his students to question and get away from thinking in preconceived ways. As I studied with him my work began to change.
I also enrolled in Marion Parry's class in children's book writing and illustration at Radcliffe. It was in that seminar that I really became involved in children's books and decided that was where I wanted to concentrate my energies.
After I completed my studies in Boston, I took my portfolio with a variety of picture and story ideas to New York for appointments with editors and art directors at publishing houses. I had a total of forty-seven interviews over a three year period. I kept offering different ideas and suggestions for books. None was taken. But the situation changed with Alphabatics.
I showed the illustrations for just three letters, A, B, and E, to Bradbury Press, a Macmillan imprint. The idea was accepted, and my career as a children's book illustrator began.
Alphabatics is an idea that came to me while taking topography in art school. In the course, I worked exclusively with letter forms, shrinking and expanding them and manipulating their shapes in various ways. I was intrigued by the process and felt there were possibilities for a book. However, it was several years before I worked out the idea.
Publishing Alphabatics, my first, was very exciting. The book was well received and won two prestigious awards: a Caldecott Honor presented by the American Library Association and The Golden Kite Award presented by the Society of Children's Book Writers.
Since Alphabatics I have written and illustrated many books for children, including, most recently, Fish Swish, Spalsh Dash!, a counting book; Shape by Shape and Alphabet Animals for Simon and Schuster's Little Simon imprint. Alphabet Animals won the NAPPA gold medal in 2008, and received first prize in the novelty division at the 2009 New York Book Show.
A great pleasure for me is encouraging readers to go beyond their usual stopping points and make their own artistic discoveries. "Children are inventors, They thrive on situations that bring out that quality of inventiveness." In books like Alphabet Animals, I create opportunities for imagination and originality.
I grew up in Glencoe, Illinois. My father was a professor at Northwestern University. My mother was a writer. We spent summers on an old farm in Weston, Vermont. My first art teacher was Churchill Ettinger, a Vermont artist who showed me how to visually transfer and translate the world before me to my paper. I can't remember how long I studied with him but by the time I entered college, I knew that art would be a focus in my life.
Since both of the colleges I attended were liberal arts schools, the courses offered were in the fine arts. No one talked about commercial art. It was considered a waste of one's talents.
I didn't think much about all that then. I just took courses: life drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics. I even made sculptures out of car parts. Nothing I tried felt quite right. I knew I was an artist but where did I fit?
After college, I married, and my husband Stuart and I settled in New York City. I decided to find a job using my artistic talents. After a number of interviews, I contacted Charles Halgren at Caru Studios and discovered that he hired artists to illustrate textbooks from time to time. That sounded like the perfect job for me, so I called him every two weeks for the next nine months. Finally, a new biology book came in and I was employed to do pen and ink illustrations for it.
I stayed at Caru for Five years. It was a wonderful time. The studio employed thirty artists, photographers, draftsmen, and even typesetters (This was before computers, and type was set by hand.). I learned all about the commercial side of art and discovered what a fascinating world it was.
Then my husband and I moved back to the family farm in Weston, Vermont, and took over a construction company. Our move came at a time when I was beginning to feel a lack of growth in my work. I'd done illustrations for all kinds of science texts and was uncertain what to do next. So I was enthusiastic about our move and our new business. I did some office work and architectural design work and drafting, and we raised two children.
However, as time went on, I needed new challenges. Somehow I was off the track. When my second child entered first grade, the time had come to quit my job and return to school. At first I thought I would become an architect. I was good at architectural design and as an architect I could continue to contribute to our business.
I looked around, found the Boston Architectural Center and went down for an interview. While I was visiting a class on that first evening, I realized very suddenly (it was like being hit by lightning) that it was not architecture that I wanted to study, it was illustration. So my search continued, but now I was looking at art schools.
I enrolled in two schools, the New England School of Art and Design and the Art Institute. By taking classes at both, I was able to organize three days of classes each week.
After I began my studies my focus shifted. I no longer wanted to draw things just as they were, I wanted to look at them in new ways: to abstract them. Bill Oakes, one of my teachers, gave me lots of encouragement in this new direction. He wanted his students to question and get away from thinking in preconceived ways. As I studied with him my work began to change.
I also enrolled in Marion Parry's class in children's book writing and illustration at Radcliffe. It was in that seminar that I really became involved in children's books and decided that was where I wanted to concentrate my energies.
After I completed my studies in Boston, I took my portfolio with a variety of picture and story ideas to New York for appointments with editors and art directors at publishing houses. I had a total of forty-seven interviews over a three year period. I kept offering different ideas and suggestions for books. None was taken. But the situation changed with Alphabatics.
I showed the illustrations for just three letters, A, B, and E, to Bradbury Press, a Macmillan imprint. The idea was accepted, and my career as a children's book illustrator began.
Alphabatics is an idea that came to me while taking topography in art school. In the course, I worked exclusively with letter forms, shrinking and expanding them and manipulating their shapes in various ways. I was intrigued by the process and felt there were possibilities for a book. However, it was several years before I worked out the idea.
Publishing Alphabatics, my first, was very exciting. The book was well received and won two prestigious awards: a Caldecott Honor presented by the American Library Association and The Golden Kite Award presented by the Society of Children's Book Writers.
Since Alphabatics I have written and illustrated many books for children, including, most recently, Fish Swish, Spalsh Dash!, a counting book; Shape by Shape and Alphabet Animals for Simon and Schuster's Little Simon imprint. Alphabet Animals won the NAPPA gold medal in 2008, and received first prize in the novelty division at the 2009 New York Book Show.
A great pleasure for me is encouraging readers to go beyond their usual stopping points and make their own artistic discoveries. "Children are inventors, They thrive on situations that bring out that quality of inventiveness." In books like Alphabet Animals, I create opportunities for imagination and originality.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great help with Counting,
By Keri P. Niepraschk (Pittsburg, California USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Look Whooo's Counting (Hardcover)
This book is great for young children learning their numbers. The beautiful and crisp pictures keep their attention while they are learning. Susie incorporates the numbers into her pictures, introducing one at a time. Each new number is also added to the owl's wings. This is a wonderful way for children to associate the number itself while learning to count. I teach preschoolers, and they all love finding the numbers in this book.
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