From Publishers Weekly
Lester (Really, Really, Really Bad Jokes) stands ceremony on its ear in this deviant abecedarian picture book, aimed at an audience who already has a firm grasp of their ABCs. As he breezes through the letters of the alphabet (well, most of them--"X and Y are not important letters. Never use them" he notes dryly), Lester dreams up a series of flagrantly flawed definitions, which he promptly undercuts with his illustrations. "A is for salad," for instance, shows an alligator eating a bowl of greens, and Lester tosses in a throwaway line after every few letters ("H is for pizza... I think"), adding to irreverent readers' glee. His full-color woodcuts of animal characters that seem to mug for readers' benefit often contribute to the wit, as in "G is for soccer," which shows a goat butting a soccer ball. But a few may be difficult to discern (e.g., "J is for hats" spotlights jellyfish whose identities are somewhat camouflaged by their chapeaux), and one illustration works against the conceit he's set up: in the vignette for "I can't figure out what Q is for. Can you?" all signs ("Look! It's a Quail!") point to the tiny, startled bird itself. The literal-minded will be happy to note that the animals reappear on the endpapers, along with their rudimentary labels ("K is also for kangaroo" and so on). A fun cavort through the 26 letters. All ages. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 1-Lester presents each letter of the alphabet through a cartoonlike animal that actually begins with that letter, accompanied by totally unrelated text. For example, "A is for salad" has an alligator munching on a bowl of greens, "L is for hair dryer" has a lion blowing out his mane, etc. The back endpapers provide the correct correlation ("A is also for alligator"). Children just learning their letters will not benefit from this type of confusion, and the book provides little substance for older readers whose sense of humor has progressed past the tiger-in-underwear stage. Some of the examples are simply pointless, such as "X and Y are not important letters. Never use them." This spread depicts two garbage men carting the letters off to their truck. Many unique and interesting alphabet books are available such as George Shannon's Tomorrow's Alphabet (Morrow, 1998) or Stephen T. Johnson's Alphabet City (Viking, 1995). Pass on this one.
Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
