B-Napped? Did You Take the B from My _ook by Beck and Matt Stanton

THIS _OOK IS _ROUGHT TO YOU _Y THE LETTER _. That is, if we can find it.

The letter B can make sounds. Can you say bubububub?

Brrrrr...?

Yes, it is a bit cold in here! Aaaaaaa-CHOO......!

Now where were we? Oh, yes! Where's my _ed?

The Letter B has been _lown away! And it's really cramping the writer's style! He tries to go on, telling us he has what is indu_ita_ly the _est of _eds!

He's also fond of _ulls. Small _ulls. _ig _ulls!

Oh, dear! Something is amiss here. Can he kick his _all? Apparently NOT!

I think my favorite letter has gone from this _ook!

_unches and _unches of perfectly good words are inuttera_le! This is really _AD! No ham_urgers and fries! No _ase_all games! No _irthday _alloons!

It's time to call on his dear readers for help! He _egs them to _ring _ack the __!

Can you say it?

It's an experience in crowd sourcing, as all the readers together bring back the B, in Beck and Matt Stanton's missing B mystery, Books That Drive Kids CRAZY!: Did You Take the B from My _ook? (Little, Brown and Company). There's lots of intriguingly word fun as youngsters get to fill in the _lanks (er, blanks) of the letter of the day. Bravissimo! The Stantons together make the best of this bad business of the B-napped letter B. Youngsters learning their letters will realize that doing without even one of the 26 letters of the alphabet can _e a _it of a pro_lem! As Publishers Weekly puts it, "It’s a winning bit of interactive silliness that offers insight into the way small changes can have big results!"

A Adds Awesome Alliteration::ABC Kids by Basher

URSULA'S UNCLE UNICYCLES UNDERWATER.

VERA VACUUMS VARIOUS VEGETABLES.

Alphabet books abound in every form and style. Kitty cats and plump puppies, cows and pigs romp alphabetically in some. Others, such as Dr. Seuss' On Beyond Zebra! (Classic Seuss), even take the twenty-six letters of the standard abecedarius beyond the familiar and into the creative world of fantasy.

Simon Basher's new Basher: ABC Kids (Kingfisher, 2011) combines Basher's familiar pygmy clothespin-shaped people and globular critters, done up in bold colors set against pastel backgrounds, with tongue-twisting creative captions that anchor and reinforce the sounds of the featured letter and may extend the working vocabulary of early childhood education students. Basher cleverly uses the improbabilities of his captions ("Walter's worms wear white wigs") to keep kids involved as he extends the humor with his inventive illustrations.

In their starred review, Booklist says "... there's more to this than just cute. The obvious care that has been put into the design, format, and word choices is what makes this [book] a delight. . . .