Picture a Letter
by Brad Sneed
Overview
From the Critics
Publishers Weekly
A veritable feast for the eye, this inventive abecedary is crammed with visual delights. Sneed (Smoky Mountain Rose) blends paints and pencils for a series of tantalizing spreads chock-full of letter-coded objects. A quick scan of the "A" page, for instance, immediately reveals an acrobat, airplane and alligator, but a closer look uncovers an angelfish, argyle socks, accordion, etc. Most of the objects are in black-and-white, which provides a stimulating contrast to each page's central representative object, rendered in color and shaped to form the letter itself. Thus a caterpillar is bent in a C-curve, while the bill of a cap and the arm of a fisherman form the twin prongs of the letter F. Sneed shoehorns in plenty of humor with puckish caricatures and silly situations (a lady who lunches holds a leashed lion). Except for a key at the back, the book is wordless, helping the book transcend age ranges. It offers equal enjoyment for those newly acquainted with the alphabet and for the well-versed (who will find plenty to challenge them, including "vaccinate," "monarch," "goslings," "ibis" and "uvula"). Youngest readers will have fun spotting the mouse at the bottom of each page, who pulls a wagon carrying each of the letters. Ages 4-up. (June) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
My thoughts
This is another one of my fabulous buys from bookcloseouts.com. I was especially intrigued because they only had ONE book left, and it had my name on it! :-) I wanted to pick this book up for my young niece, as it looked intriguing from the photos on the site.
The book arrived and I popped it open and I was a bit disappointed. For an adult proficient in recognizing letters of the alphabet, it's hard to distinguish the letter. How will a child just learning the alphabet get any good out of this book? THEN I sat down with my teenage daughter, who explained it to me! (I can't believe I'm admitting this!)
On each page of the book, there is a colorful drawing in the shape of the main letter for that page, but the fun resides in trying to find all the other things hidding in the background image that also begin with the letter! We had MORE FUN going page by page through this book! We laughed and laughed, and it became a race to see who could come up with the items the fastest, or who could figure out the more obscure items. It was TONS of fun! I can't wait until my niece and nephew are old enough to read this book! I'm keeping it on my shelf for when they come to visit! It's just awesome!
