Stowaway Sister: B Is For Baby by Atinuke

B IS FOR BABY.

An endearing baby girl is the star of the story. Mama does up her baby's do, putting in the last BEAD, while BABY plays with the lid of a BASKET.

B IS FOR BROTHER.

Baby's big brother boogies to the music on his earphones as he packs a bunch of BANANAS into a BASKET. But while he practices his best moves, BABY wants a BANANA for BREAKFAST and crawls into the BASKET and stows away under the lid of the BASKET. Brother struggles to get the strangely heavy BASKET on the back of his BYCYCLE, while BABY giggles silently. But BROTHER is feeling big as he pedals down the road to take the BANANAS to his Grandfather BABA. The day is BEAUTIFUL, with a BAOBAB tree full of BIRDS and fluttering BUTTERFLIES. But the road to BABA'S BUNGALOW has its obstacles.

B IS FOR BUMPY!!

And there are BABOONS, one of which snatches the lid off the BASKET and swipes a BANANA! From her bed in the basket BABY begins to hand out BANANAS to the BABY BABOONS as they pass under their tree and the BOYS on the school BUS as they ride by. Over a BRIDGE and by the blossoms of BOUGANVILLEA, BROTHER finally arrives at BABA'S BUNGALOW with the gift for his grandfather. It's a surprise--with a BABY among the BANANAS in the BASKET, which calls for a snack from BABA for the two intrepid travelers.

B IS FOR BISCUITS.

And then it's BACK TO MAMA FOR BABY!

It's a BIG day for the letter B, in Atinuke's B is for Baby (Candlewick, 2019), a boisterous and endearing alphabet book which features a lively cast of characters and an adventurous and adorable baby sister who provides the plot for this lively story. The text is very much buoyed by the charming, bright, and beautiful illustrations provided by Angela Brooksbank. "...A charmer!" says Booklist.

Literary Feline: The Bookstore Cat by Cylin Busby

The bookstore cat is an ADORABLE cat!

But if he doesn't like the sort of cat food the gentle librarian gives him, he is also ...

a BOSSY cat!

He can be a cozy, coddled, cuddled cat, especially fond of laps which already have a laptop computer on them. On the other hand, when a stranger approaches, he can dart away and make himself scarce. In the courtyard he can excitedly climb a fence to see a friendly dog on the other side. He may be gorgeous (although he tries to appear humble)!

The bookstore cat is many things, all in alphabetical order--sometimes he's as wild as a kitten, sometimes not so nice, as he leaps high and pushes books and potted plants off the shelves--but almost always loving and patient with the little kids in the children's section. And when he tires of his duties, he snoozes on shelves, amid displays, and in the acquisitions office inside those sturdy cardboard boxes that books are shipped in. He manages to take a dive into the bookstore aquarium, emerging as a yucky and yowling cat. He's everywhere and nowhere, and when evening comes, he is...

... a ZIGZAG CAT...

...who is hard to catch at closing time, in Cylin Busby's adorable new title, The Bookstore Cat (Balzer and Bray, 2020). Author Busby's big orange striper is the favorite pet of patrons, adding some cachet and clutter to the scene, in the winsome and endearing illustrations of the award-winning artist Charles Santoso. What could be better than an alphabet book that brings together cats and books and vocabulary-building for all ages? The author's note states that the book is based on an old Victorian game, the Minister's Cat, in which one by one the players come up with their own adjective to describe the cat through the alphabet in a vocabulary-enriching competition to keep the words coming without breaking the clapping rhythm. This brand-new offering is handy for March's Dr. Seuss' Read Across America Day, April's National Library Week, or May's Book Week, or any school's own book fair promotions.

Monster Anxiety! Bad Kitty Scaredy Cat by Nick Bruel

Back in her first summer, when Bad Kitty was a kitten, she was audacious... brave...courageous... dauntless, even... fearless.. and kittenishly loopy, and muddled (but never mind those lapses). She was one tough kitty, a take-on-the-world kitty. Until... HALLOWEEN. It began with the doorbell

Ding Dong! Out of the darkness and into her doorway appeared the most horrible and frightening creatures Kitty had ever seen! TRICK OR TREAT! She saw... an Awful Alien, a Bizarre Bigfoot and a Creepy Clown....

On and on they came out of the night--ectoplasms, Frankensteins, even Uncle Murray borrowing candy, a parade of horrors, right down to a yeti and a zombie, made even more horrible by their relentlessly abnormal alphabetical order Bad Kitty freaked out! Gone was the carefree, casual, ever plucky Kitty!

She was a very, very scared, SCARED, SCARED little kitty.

Is the Bold and Brazen Bad Kitty gone forever? Or will Bad Kitty rally to Clobber the Clown, Flatten the Frankenstein, Maul the Mummy, and Whack the Werewolf? What do you think? Uncle Murray the Moocher hasn't got a chance in Nick Bruel's Bad Kitty Scaredy-Cat (Roaring Brook, 2019). Halloween hath no horrors compared to a Reconstituted Bad Kitty in which author-illustrator Bruel returns to the alliterative, alphabetizing wordplay wizardry born back in 2013 in his first best-selling picture book, Bad Kitty, There are many lovely and lovable kitty cats in literature, but only one Bad Kitty! Says Kirkus Reviews, "An origin story―-and alphabet practice and vocabulary stretcher―-for Bad Kitty's fans."

Go BIG! Roar Like A Dandelion! by Ruth Kraus

Sometimes you want to be POWERFUL.

CROW LIKE A ROOSTER.
MAKE THE SUN COME UP.

Sometimes you want to be CHANGE THINGS.

KICK AWAY THE SNOW
AND MAKE SPRING COME.

Sometimes you just want to make things BETTER.

X OUT ALL THE BAD STUFF.

It's go big or go home, in the notable Ruth Kraus' never-before-published Roar Like a Dandelion (HarperCollins, 2019), in which the charming little critters created by artist Sergio Ruzzier have their way through the usual ho-hum of alphabet books. A bunny blasts a piggie with a giant cornet; trees undress for the wintry season; a kitty searches for verses under a single bedstead; a poodle plays like a pine tree, and a political piglet casts a vote for himself--and all do their thing in alphabetical order, making Kraus' manuscript come alive for youngsters today in superbly silly style.

Kirkus joins the praise in a firmament of starred reviews, saying, "This work adroitly bridges the more-than-half-century gap between two accomplished artists.... An abecedarian catalog of delights."

Crabphabetical! The Crab Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta

DEAR READER,

We crabs are tired of books about cute penguins and colorful butterflies.

Enough with the cutesy critters, the crabs complain. CRABS ARE COOL.

They are decopods--animals with ten feet (eight legs and two claws)! How's that for unusual? And if they lose a leg, they grow it back. They have eyes on stalks so they can see in all directions. They have shells for safety and some of them also crawl inside a cast-off shell for extra protection. Crabs can be colorful, or they can go for the camou look. Crabs can be sneaky. Crabs can be scary, even creepy. And yes, they can be (sort of) cute and cool pets, too.

And just in time for the crabs' makeover campaign, that master of the abecedarian picture book, Jerry Pallotta, has his newly published The Crab Alphabet Book (Charlesbridge Publishing, 2019).

With this newest title, author Pallotta continues his career providing outstanding nonfiction books aimed at the the primary grades. Here he comes up with twenty-six crabs in alphabetical order, from the arrow crab to the zebra hermit crab, named for their shapes or markings, and with each one getting its own full-page detailed color illustration by noted artist Tom Leonard. Some crabs specialize in colors: the blue crab is, well, blue; the Christmas Island crabs sport Santa-suit red shells and legs; while the Halloween crab has a natural orange and black coloration. The sneaky decorator crab, however, covers his shell with whatever keeps him covert, be it purple or mossy green seaweed. Ghost crabs, silvery white, come out only at night, while the king crab wears royal scarlet and the little green crab is, well, green.

Size can be a amazing, too. Crabs can be tiny, like the pea-sized oyster crab, or monstrous-sized, like the thirteen-feet-wide Japanese spider crab and the three-feet-wide, burly land-dwelling robber crab. Crabs can be solitary, like the eponymous hermit, or march in armies like the soldier crab. They can be crinkly, like the wrinkled crab, fuzzy like the Yeti crab, or sleek as a fiddler crab.

In Pallotta's latest natural history entry, crabs are unquestionably cool. This humorous, irresistible, and beautiful nonfiction picture book belongs in classroom, school, and public libraries everywhere.

Superwomen! A Is For Awesome by Eva Chen

No, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Beyonce, and Malala Yousefai are not touring as the latest fab girl group!

Despite its cover, Eva Chen's just published little book, A Is for Awesome!: 23 Iconic Women Who Changed the World (Feiwel and Friends, 2019), is the latest collective biography, in the format of an alphabet book, celebrating, as the subtitle says, 23 Iconic Women Who Changed the World.

A Is for Amelia (Earhardt, that is). The Awesome Aviator, First to Fly Across the Atlantic

And even though Amelia was only a passenger on that first transatlantic flight, she was the first woman to take an airplane to Europe, and with her fashion flair and talent for publicity, her feats as famed pilot that followed drew dozens of women pilots to take to the air and influenced many other women to prove that they could fly as fast, as far, and as well as any man, even into space.

Among the famous notable and famed women included are Dorothy Hodgkin, winner of the Nobel Prize for science, Katherine Graham, the first woman publisher of a major newspaper and the courageous editor who published the Pentagon Papers, Flo Joyner, the fastest woman runner of the twentieth century, Coco Chanel, first woman CEO of a foremost fashion house, Queen Elizabeth I, whose long reign led to the development of the British Empire, Lucille Ball, the first woman to be chief of a major movie studio, and Harriet Tubman, the most famous "conductor of the Underground Railroad" who "never lost a passenger," served as Civil War nurse and a successful behind-enemy-lines spy, gallantly led a Union Army attack on a Confederate garrison, and lived to become an early leader in the women's suffrage movement.

There's a wide range of boundary-breaking women from all races, eras, and walks of life in this small alphabet book, making this one a top-selling book for young readers, just right for Women's Month in March.

A Foodie's Alphabet: A Is For Artichoke: a Foodie Alphabet from Artichoke to Zest by Maddie Frost

V Is For Vanilla

W Is For Whisk

Maddie Frost's A Is for Artichoke: A Foodie Alphabet from Artichoke to Zest (Sourcebooks, 2018) is not your father's alphabet book. Sponsored by America's Test Kitchen, this little book is tailored for the hardcore young foodie and filled with varieties of vegetables, fancy fruits, culinary concepts, and esoteric equipment, and the eye-pleasing pages mix colorful entries for ordinary foods--ice cream and jam--and unusual foods--kumquats, quinoa, xigua, ganache--and kitchen equipment from the ubiquitous oven to the less-common lemon zester.

Along with their letters, young children will learn about foods they may spot in the supermarket and enjoy the anthropomorphic cartoon illustrations, and slightly older kids may appreciate a nodding acquaintance with edibles like lox and edamame, tools like the whisk and tongs, and processes such as brining and caramelization. Even umami gets a mention, although the definition of "savory" only approaches the somewhat amorphous meaning of the term and may not be familiar for the youngest kids. This is indeed an alphabet book in a class by itself.

This different drummer of an abecedarius has specific appeal to kids who know or wish to know their way around the kitchen and table. Says School Library Journal, "Foodies will love this celebration of all good things to eat. Also an excellent introduction to more complex culinary vocabulary."

Learning the Letters: S Is For School: A Classroom Alphabet by Greg Paprocki

B is for BACKPACK.

Thrilled or not, it's time for youngsters to grab those new backpacks, sharpen their PENCILS, count their CRAYONS, look inside their LUNCHBOXES for JUICE BOXES, and perhaps don their UNIFORMS. It's time for SCHOOL to start.

Kids will have to listen to LESSONS, and there will be ZEROS and perhaps some Xs in their MATH HOMEWORK, for sure.

But, on the bright side, there will be FRIENDS to find and GAMES to play at KINDERGARTEN and new experiences all through the SCHOOL.

Author-illustrator Greg Paprocki hits some of the high points in the alphabet in his new S Is for School: A Classroom Alphabet (BabyLit) (Gibbs-Smith, 2018). Paprocki, whose credits include illustrations for Curious George books, does this one up in charming and trendy retro 1950s-cartoon art style, with jolly moppets in mid-century-type buildings and kitschy classrooms reminiscent of Little Golden Book illustrations, and this alphabet book is a cozy and comforting choice for new scholars.

Paprocki is also the author-illustrator of a wide variety of alphabet books such as B Is for Boo: A Halloween Alphabet (BabyLit) and C Is for Castle: A Medieval Alphabet and S Is for Sabertooth: A Stone Age Alphabet.

Floral Frenzy: Mrs. Peanuckle's Flower Alphabet by Jessie Ford

Say it with flowers!

Summer is in full swing and flowers are in full bloom. Preschoolers are learning their letters, so why not learn them in alphabetical order with
Mrs. Peanuckle's Flower Alphabet (Mrs. Peanuckle's Alphabet) (Macmillan, 2018).

In this cheerful board book, illustrated with just the right amount of detail by Jessie Ford, little abecedarians can meet twenty-six common flowers from asters to zinnias.

Several of the entries are fairly rare species, not found in the everyday garden. For example, orchids, brought to you by the letter O, exist in 28,000 varieties, while the bird of paradise bloom is, like its namesake, found in tropical zones. Echinachia is a favorite of the pollinators--bees, birds, and butterflies--and the aster, named from the Greek for their star shapes, are kind enough to bloom in autumn, when most of the rest are simply busy sowing seeds!

There are wild flowers, such as Queen Anne's Lace, that favorite of the waysides, and water lilies, which cleverly float on their leaves in waterways. There's the ubiquitous geranium, fond of pots, the showy dahlia, so "dah-ling!" and the sun-loving sunflower whose face follows the sun across the summer sky. Preschoolers can learn their letters and get a little botany lesson along the way in this alphabet book of blooms.

Other books in this series are Mrs. Peanuckle's Tree Alphabet (Mrs. Peanuckle's Alphabet), Mrs. Peanuckle's Bug Alphabet (Mrs. Peanuckle's Alphabet) Mrs. Peanuckle's Bug Alphabet (Mrs. Peanuckle's Alphabet), and Mrs. Peanuckle's Vegetable Alphabet (Mrs. Peanuckle's Alphabet).

Spit Spot! Mary Poppins ABC by P. L. Travers

Look who's just blown in on the East Wind?

It's that famed nanny of children's literature, with her umbrella and carpet bag.

Mary Poppins is ready to instruct her charges in balloon soaring and cherry-chewing, and cleaning up, spit-spot--in her very own, especially curated abecedarian book for those learning their letters and meeting the characters in her classic children's novel.

J is for Jane and John, picking Juniper berries and Jasmine. Mary Poppins tells the Jeering Park Keeper to Jog along.

Sometime Mary takes her charges along as she does the daily errands:

M is for Michael and Mary Poppins, coming home from the Market with Meat and Marmalade.

And on their daily outings they meet some colorful characters, like that lucky chimney sweep:

L is for the Legend of the sweep. He'll Labor to Leave your chimney clean, and it's Lucky to shake his hand.

If you're feeling like a chorus of "Chim-Chim-Cheree!" about now, you're in the right place, in P. L. Travers Mary Poppins ABC (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), illustrated with the classic drawings of Mary Shepard from the ever-popular series, also made famous by the hit Broadway musical and the classic movie "Mary Poppins." This alphabet book is letter perfect as a preview for a read-aloud session with the original Mary Poppins, or as a rhyming preview for watching the movie. And get ready for One day in October when

"they all flew away Over the Oak trees."

Glutton's Diary: A Busy Creature's Day Eating: An Alphabetical Smorgasbord by Mo Willems

To call this vaguely bunny-like critter a gourmand is being kind.

He's more of a glutton.

Oh, he begins the day with a fairly humdrum and healthy diet.

APPLE

BERRIES

CEREAL

But after tucking away some chocolate doughnuts and fried eggs, this creature's appetite strays toward something crunchy--the furniture, maybe?

He finds the chair and table a bit bland, however, and longs for something more... savory.

HUGE HOT-SAUCE HALIBUT HOAGY!

To cool his palate the critter seeks some ice cream, but things only go from bad to worse!

It's the animal that ate Albany!

As articles of outerwear and lunch boxes go down his goozle, they are followed by mayo and a napkin--not to wipe his magnum mouth--but to nibble as dessert,

Nausea sets in after noshing on the napkin. Is he queasy? Is he sprinting for the potty? Well--yes! It's time for Dad to take over and try to soothe that upset tummy with tea and sympathy and saltines, plus hugs and kisses.

All's well that ends well, with the day's dietary diary ending happily with Dad's little chowhound catching some ZZZZZs, in the noted Mo Willems' newest creation, A Busy Creature's Day Eating (Hyperion books, 2018). Subtitled "An Alphabetical Smorgasbord," the author-illustrator keeps his outrageous eater chomping alphabetically until "Z End" and after, with our little overeater creature chomping down the barcode, International Standard Book Number and Library of Congress numbers on the back of the dust jacket. Willems, who began as an ebullient Grammy-winning cartoonist for Sesame Street, lets this over-the-top guzzler run riot through his diet in a novel and extravagant style of cartooning. The only thing about Mo Willems' latest that is predictable are the giggles of gross-out glee from its young readers.

Willem's Caldecott winners include Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity, and his Theodore Seuss Medals for beginning readers include five of his blockbuster Elephant and Piggie books.

Follow the Bouncing Ball! OOPS POUNCE QUICK RUN! by Mike Twohy

ASLEEP.

A mouse snoozes safely in his cozy mouse hole.

What could happen, right?

But just outside that hole a dog is playing with his ball, which, (what are the odds?) bounces and rolls right through that mouse hole and lands in the lap of the no-longer snoozing, and now grumpy rodent. He kicks that ball back.

CATCH!

The DOG is intrigued and poke his nose right into the mouse hole for an investigatory sniff. He put one EYE to the hole for a peep inside. Aha! He shoves a FOOT through the hole. GRRR!

HELP! Mouse makes a run for it, right through Dog's legs, and Dog pursues the mouse through the kitchen and living room, where rugs scatter and a lamp falls.

Now where is that miserable mouse? He seems to be Nowhere! OOPS! What's that sticking out from under the drapes? A mouse tail? Time for a pounce!

The game is afoot!

It's a classic chase, a la Tom and Jerry cartoons, in Mike Twohy's 2017 Theodor Seuss Geisel Award-winning Oops, Pounce, Quick, Run!: An Alphabet Caper (Balzer and Bray), except that this cat and mouse game is a dog and mouse game and it occurs, educationally, in alphabetical order. But just as Jerry is never in real danger from Tom, this mouse also makes the right move, wrapping up the dog's beloved ball in gift wrap, and concluding amiably, with a doggy tail wag, shared XOXOs, and some ZZZZzzzs as Mouse resumes his nap along with Dog.

Author-illustrator Twohy's pen and marker artwork captures the rollicking frolic of the chase in true comic style, while youngsters get an unexpected romp through the alphabet as well. Good for tots just learning to recognize their letters and their sounds, and good for beginning readers who relish an amusing alphabet adventure in just twenty-six words, this one also has plenty of giggles built in for storytime. For read-alouds, pair this one with Mary Sullivan's equally enjoyable 2014 Geisel Award-winning Ball for a bouncy twofer read!

Fruit Basket Turn Over! Mrs. Peanuckle's Alphabet by Jessie Ford.

A IS FOR AVOCADO.

Bet you thought I 'd say APPLE! But both are fruits and both grow on trees.

Fruits can grow on vines, on bushes, and on trees.

BANANAS and COCONUTS both grow on trees, but one is long and a little soft, and the the other is round and veryhard.

RASPBERRIES grow on bushes, but GRAPES grow on vines, and both are soft and juicy when they are ripe.

And don't forget...

FIGS, fresh and delicious. Dried and nutritious.

From as exotic as JACKFRUIT or XIGUA, or as common as ORANGES and APPLES in the lunchbox, fruits are great foods for everyone, and Jessie Ford's Mrs. Peanuckle's Fruit Alphabet (Mrs. Peanuckle's Alphabet Library) (Macmillan, 2017) offers practice with the alphabet and a chance to get to know a wide variety of fruits, including TOMATOES, that very versatile fruit which often passes for a vegetable. Okay, it's not so sweet as most berries but essential for a savory sauce for spaghetti and pizza or to top a hamburger or hot dog.

For young abecedarians and young foodies alike, this little book does double duty, tempting youngsters to try a walk through the produce section to make up their own alphabet book of fruits. And, yes!APPLES count!

It's A GO! Dig Dig Digging ABC by Margaret Mayo

A IS FOR AMBULANCE,

BUSY, BUSY AMBULANCE.

RUSH, RUSH, RUSH!

WHEE-OW, WHEE-OW!

For a certain contingent of kids, big machines are fascinating. Things that dig and float and fly with verve are their favorite things, and Margaret Mayo's Dig Dig Digging ABC (Henry Holt and Company, 2017), all the big boys are there--bulldozers, cranes, diggers, express trains, fire engines--all the favorites are up front to teach the alphabet.

J IS FOR JUMBO JET,

ROARING, SOARING!

Some of the things that go are not those usually seen in alphabet books--kayaks, scooters, windsurfing boards, and velodrome racing bikes-- but all are pictured in action, with onomatopoeic sounds to distinguish them--whooshing, cruising, bumping, whizzing, humming--full of life and action, in a a boardbook that delivers the alphabet with jolly illustrations by artist Alex Ayliffe that give it plenty of go-power.

For kids who just can't get enough of things that go VROOOM, ZOOOM, and RROOOM, here's one just loaded with sound effects and movement.

The Cat Came Back! The Little Red Cat Who Ran Away and Learned His ABCs (the Hard Way) by Patrick McDonnell

Little Red Cat makes a hasty getaway from his house. Is he chasing a mouse? Is a dog chasing him?

Maybe he's revolting against learning his ABCs. We'll never know!

But in short order Little Red Cat meets an ALLIGATOR who clearly wants a snack. And right behind said 'gator is another predator, a BEAR!

It's quite a lineup--ALLIGATOR, BEAR, CAT (still outrunning the two). Could this be--an ALPHABET BOOK?

Well, next comes a DRAGON, and then a chicken laying an EGG (with legs), and indeed there seems to be a recognizable order in this chase.

Yes, it's definitely an alphabet book on the run, with Little Red Cat unable to exit, page right!

The Dragon has FIERY breath which is so bright everyone has to put on dark GLASSES, even the EGG, who has no ears for the earpieces. They speed through the letters, slowing down only for a vertical double-page spread in which they all PARACHUTE after the Little Red Cat.

The chase is still on and there's no stopping--except for a REST ROOM break, and then the race resumes yet again. Is there no end to this run? The SUN is going down, and they are growing TIRED! Is there any rest for the weary runners?

Never fear, gentle readers. All alphabets end eventually and this one has a gentle conclusion involving (What else?) a UNICORN and a princess with VALENTINES for all, inspiring hugs among the crowd. X marks the spot for huge YAWNS and plenty of ZZZZZZs for the well-exercised letters of the English alphabet, and isn't that what alphabet books are for?

Caldecott winning, best-selling author Patrick McDonnell's new The Little Red Cat Who Ran Away and Learned His ABC's (the Hard Way) (Little, Brown and Company, 2017) features a retro-style cartoon cat and the usual alphabetical suspects in a different sort of alphabet book that echews the usual A is for Apple type of text in a tale that never stops moving. McDonnell's illustrations are inspired and not necessarily intuitive, as his chase has his string of letter characters swinging on vines through JUNGLE and running off a cliff (NNNNNOOOOO!) in jolly Roadrunner-and-Coyote style, in action that will keep kids giggling and turning the pages--and even learning their letters The New York Times Book Review says, "McDonnell's work once again proves to be silly, sweet, and even timeless." "Give this book an F, yes, an F: for fun and funny." says Kirkus in their starred review.

Off to School! K Is for Kindergarten by Erin Dailey

ARE YOU COUNTING THE DAYS UNTIL KINDERGARTEN?

A IS FOR AT LAST!

B IS FOR BOUNCING BALLS!

Erin Dailey's K is for Kindergarten (Sleeping Bear Alphabet Books) (Sleeping Bear Press, 2017) takes the rising Kindertgartner through the all important alphabet of school doings all right, from A to Z, with C is for Classroom and D is for Directions (like those School Rules to follow), Q is for Quiet Time and T is for Terrific Teachers.

But this book not only offers practice in alphabetical order and initial sounds. but also includes a lot of work with numbers, shapes, and other concepts as well. Each letter's page features a Kindergarten Countdown and a Kindergarten Challenge with plenty to do. For example, the Letter A has kids marking the first day of Kindergarten on a calendar and the current day, counting the days between, and making a paper chain with the days' numbers in between on each to remove as the days count down. The Kindergarten Challenge tells them to count the days until the 100th day of school and mark it with an X as well, and then suggest they learn 100 new words, one each day, by then. Each of the activities is imaginative, with some hands-on activities and some intellectual concepts, and with something for everyone that children will especially enjoy along the way.

Joseph Cowman's muted retro illustrations offer an attractive alternative to the usual cartoon kids found in most Kindergarten stories, and this book provides a lot for parent and child to do, also offering an opportunity to draw out feelings about the start of school that will help ease the transition to Kindergarten.

B Is For Bunny: P Is For Peter illustrated by Beatrix Potter

A is for A cozy dormouse.

B is for sleepy Bunnies.

Of course, those best-known mischievous bunnies, Peter Rabbit and his buddy Benjamin Bunny, are mostly busy, not sleepy, but even these little runaways must nap sometime!

But in P Is for Peter (Peter Rabbit) (Frederick Warne, 2016), the usual suspects are behaving well, helping to teach their letters to precocious preschoolers.

P is for Peter, that famous rabbit, who has a forever friend, practices his jumps, is sometime good, who nibbles on healthy veggies, listens to ducklings quack, tells tall tales, and sometimes snoozes, ZZZZZZ, wherever he chooses.

Using the familiar drawings of Beatrix Potter, with a pastel palette anchored by soft polka-dotted blue letters, this little board book is a fine choice for a first alphabet book and a pre-primer introduction to the famous characters in the tales of Beatrix Potter. This charming little one doubles as both an alphabet book and a holiday treat for Easter.

Letter Perfect Poses! ABC Yoga by Christiane Engel

COPY OUR YOGA POSES AS YOU FOLLOW THROUGH THE ALPHABET.

Let the ARMADILLO show you how to curl and stretch.

Sit down crisscross and put the palms of your hand and the soles of your feet together and flutter and flap them like the BUTTERFLY's wings!

Now you've got it! Do a plank like the CROCODILE DOES.

Get down like a DOGGIE! Lunge like an IGUANA!

Christine Engel's ABC Yoga: Join us and the animals out in nature and learn some yoga! (Quarto Press, 2016) takes preschool youngsters through the twenty-six letters of the alphabet as they imitate favorite animals, from the armadillo to the whale and beyond in simple rhyming text and jolly illustrations of animals doing what they do every day, even pigs (who roll in the mud) and ... sharks! It's a fun way to exercise with a group or at home with Mom and learn the names of some interesting animals and their moves, as well as basic yoga positions.

WATCH THE WHALE IN THE SEA. MAKE A BREACH! LET'S COUNT TO THREE.

And to make a day of it, pair this one with Miriam Yates' hit, Good Night Yoga: A Pose-by-Pose Bedtime Story.