Alphabet of Admirable Attributes: A Is for Awesome by Dallas Clayton

B IS FOR BEAUTIFUL, BIG, BOLD, BRAZEN

When you start out the alphabet wth an A for amazing and awesome, what will you do for the amazin' and brazen letter Z?

Z is for Zero Defects?

In his sequel to the self-published, top-selling An Awesome Book!,Dallas Clayton pulls out some truly awesome adjectives for the rest of his alphabet of admirable attributes.

Clayton's latest, A Is for Awesome (Candlewick Press, 2014), adds adjective upon adjective to his abecedarius of commendable qualities, with words from confident or dreaming to talkative or understanding. His freestyle, squiggly illustrations provide examples for everything to do with those qualities, from a baseball bat to a sailboat. Following up on his gone-viral first book, Clayton's novel alphabet book is intended to inspire youngsters to try their wings and go for the gusto, except, of course, when it comes to the end of the day, when it's time to give it all a rest!

Z Is For ... ZZZleeping!

As Publishers Weekly's reviewer puts it, "In keeping with the irreverently inspirational attitude of his previous work, Clayton provides an alphabet of affirmations."

Homo Abecedarius: Caveman--A B.C. Story by Janee Trasler

In a comic prehistorical abecedarius, her just-published Caveman, A B.C. Story, Janee Trasler manages to tell a couple of prehistoric tales with only one word for each of the letters of the alphabet, aided and abetted by her cartoon caveman and his comic sidekicks.

This "B.C. story" begins with an ACORN, eagerly pursued by a squirrel, who is himself pursued by a potential predator, Caveman himself in the title role. This simple scene is immediately altered by the appearance of a BEAR, who takes precedence in the predatory queue and pursues them both. But three can play at this game when a DINO pops up to give chase to the lot of them. But no, he's not actually carnivorous! He settles down to EAT the acorn, while the scared squirrel passes out in a post-predation FAINT, and the relieved Bear waves GOOD-BYE. End of episode one!

The one-word story continues with more excitement as the Caveman hears a HELP! and attempts to unlock a purple critter from a glacial block of ICE and ends up with a YAY! when the friendly dino returns to give the Caveman a friendly lick and the four friends, their food chain problems successfully resolved for the moment, collapse to the ground into a welcome snooze with a final ZZzz!

It's a Stone Age farce and a bit of a tour de force, a little fantasy narrated solely by easy-to-read words in alphabetical order, with cartoon characters--a big-nosed, bushy-bearded caveman and a cast of comic if chronologically incompatible critters--all of whom finally find common ground in a nap!

Kirkus Reviews sums it up succinctly and alphabetically: "F stands for FUN here."