Better Together! Every Little Letter by Deborah Underwood

 

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A CITY OF LETTERS, SURROUNDED BY WALLS.

THE LETTERS WERE ALL THE SAME. THE Hs FELT SAFE BEHIND THEIR WALLS.

Since everybody was alike, it felt comfortable, but not at all exciting. So when one little h found a missing stone in their wall, she couldn't resist peeping through the hole. She saw another little letter--an i.

TOGETHER THEY MADE SOMETHING-- "hi."

But when the big letters found out, they hurriedly filled in the hole in the wall and boarded it up. There would be no more of this communication! But it was too late. The little letter h began to send her name over the walls written on a paper airplane. Little o found one!

oh? oh!

Soon the little letters were sending their letters over all the walls. All the X's make the O's tic-tac-toe games more competitive!

BUT THEN THE BIG LETTERS FOUND OUT.

All the little letters were seized--except for two that little h managed to hide. She looked at letters d and n and couldn't think what to make of them, until she looked at them from a different point of view:

She found she had up. And she looked up! That night all the little letters stole up on top of the walls that divided them. They got together and spelled...

together

And that was the beginning of lots of new words like kindness and cooperation that they made together, in Deborah Underwood's recent, Every Little Letter (Dial Books, 2020). For young ones just learning  letters and somewhat older children who are beginning the understand the power and magic of words, this latest is an unusual book that helps teach children how to combine letters and find words and which helps them think "outside the box," to understand and feel what divides us and shapes us as humans.

Artist Joy Hwang Ruis' charming pastel illustrations give personality to the little letters as they learn how to make something of themselves and teach the big letters a thing or two about meaning. Deborah Underwood, author of the highly praised and poetic The Quiet Book and The Loud Book!, was equally well-reviewed for this new one. Says Publishers Weekly, "Smartly executed . . . Underlines how diversity leads to strength."

By the Letter! A Visit to Grandad: An African ABC by Sade Fadipe

A is for Adanah

and my school is on Break.

At last Adanah is old enough to visit her grandfather by herself! She packs her Bags, including her Camera so she can make pictures to show her friends. Adanah wears her best Dress for the trip.

Dad drives Adanah all the way.

There are lots of things to see and do on Adanah's visit, in Sade Fadipe's lively A Visit to Grandad: An African ABC (Cassava Republic, 2029 Am. Ed.), and part of the fun is that Adanah sees them in alphabetical order.

E is for Eagles, flying high above the trees.

But that's not all to be seen that begins with the letter E. There is a woman carrying a tray of carefully stacked Eggs, a billboard which pictures an Elephant, a sign that advertises Eyeglasses, and an artist painting on an Easel.

Riding past a patch of Forest beside the road, Adanah also sees a Fisherman with a string of Four Fish and a Falcon in the tree. And then there's the Gate in front of Grandad's yard, and he hurries out to give her a big Hug.

A visit wouldn't be a visit without Stories from Aunt Sumbo under the big Tree and splashing in the rain puddles under a big Umbrella. And when it's time to return home, Adanah climbs into the Van, where her mom has her a present--a Xylophone--to make the trip home fun. And Adanah can't wait to tell her little sister Zainab all about her trip, from A to Z. Kids just learning their alphabet will have fun matching the big capital letters on each page with the matching initial-sound objects in the illustrations on the page, and author Fadipe provides an appended list of objects found on each page for each letter.

Artist Shedrach Ayalomeh fills each page with lively activities, done with fine draftsmanship, rich colors, and lively line and details, full of busy and joyful life being lived.

The Case of the Misplaced Letters! If the S in Moose Comes Loose by Peter Herman

If the S in MOOSE comes loose and the E breaks free...

What's left ? A gloomy MOO from a cow who doesn't know what to do....

What's in a name? If a moose's letters can get loose, what can COW do to protect her MOO?
Cow figures she needs G-L-U-E.

COW figures that if she can glue the S and the E together and then stick them back on the MOO, all their problems will be solved. Is that TRUE?

Er, NO. It's not that easy. COW encounters complications.

"WAIT! I'm out of GLUE!
I'll just spell it! That's what I'll do!"

It's just four little letters, after all. How hard can it be?

But when Cow grabs a G for GLUE from GOAT and then begs a B from BEAR to make Goat a BOAT for the interim, complications arise and hilarity ensues. Bear doesn't care for being an EAR, and Lake is unwilling to share his L and be a CAKE, and HOUSE resolutely refuses to be a HOSE....

"Bummer!" says Cow. "My U fell through."

You can see the problem when Cow tries to play scrabble with everyone's proprietary spelling, in Peter Herman's If the S in Moose Comes Loose (Harper, 2018).  Kids just learning to spell will get some giggles from the re-arranged words, set engagingly within author Herman's jaunty rhymes, with the help of noted artist Matthew Cordell's comic critter characters. Cow finally finagles to help Moose get himself together and restores everyone to their proper orthography--except for the unfortunate Goat, who is still finding it a bit discombobulating being a Boat!

This book has plenty of play with words for primary grade free reading or for readalouds. Says Kirkus Reviews, "All ends happily. Hermann's fast-paced romp will likely leave readers laughing and spelling along. Cordell's illustrations, rendered in pen and ink and watercolor, match the kinetic pace of the tale. His animals are loosely drawn and delightfully expressive."

Stories from the Trunk: Elephant's Story by Tracy Campbell Pearson

THE DAY GRACIE LOST HER FAVORITE BOOK, ELEPHANT FOUND IT.

Elephant is curious, but he has no idea what a book is for. He gives it an investigative sniff with his long trunk, and...

OOPS! THE WORDS WENT UP HIS TRUNK!

An elephant's trunk can do amazing things, but it is not the perfect place for words. The words tickle his trunk unbearably and soon the inevitable happens.

"AH...AHH... AHHH...CHOOOOO!!

But the "once upon a time" of the words sneeze out in a jumble of letters landing everywhere. Elephant doesn't know how to put the letters back into words, and his friends are no help.

Seal balances some on his nose, but only manages the word SPIN.  Monkey tosses them around, but gets THROW. Alligator tries to take a bite and only produces CHEW.

The others are worse than no help at all. Elephant knows those are the wrong words and puts his long nose to work, snorfing the letters back up again to keep them safe. Then, for additional security, he sits down on the book and waits.

Gracie comes along and spots her favorite story book. But when she pries it out from under Elephant and opens it, something is very wrong.

"WHERE ARE MY WORDS?" SHE ASKED.

Elephant looks guilty. Gracie has an idea where the missing letters are, and a few tickles bring on a very productive sneeze. Gracie gets her letters back, and now she has an inspiration for a novel arrangement of them to tell a new story. Not only can she reload her favorite book with a story, but she and Elephant put the letters together to tell a story about a girl and and an elephant who come up with some new words to tell their own story, in Tracy Campbell Pearson's Elephant's Story (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2013).

In a new twist on the opening premise of the popular Martha Speaks series, Pearson's enticing illustrations pretty much tell the story all by themselves. Her fantasy-cloaked animal characters, clearly an African elephant and other zoo critter friends, are playful stand-ins for youngsters confronting the task of putting letters together into speech, and Gracie, with her jaunty upright topknot, peppermint striped tights, and lavender-dotted backpack, is just the girl to take on the task. With a practiced eye and a creative mind, she immediately sets out to make something personal out of the raw materials of language, to tell a new once-upon-a-time tale of "Gracie, who made a new friend. His name was Elephant." Pearson's charming endpapers reinforce the alphabet with drawings of Elephant obligingly contorting himself into the shape of the 26 letters. As the New York Times takes pains to note, "Like all the best books, this one can be read on several levels, and kids ready for simple deciphering will enjoy Pearson's anagrams."

Elephant's Story plays well with Tad Hills' How Rocket Learned to Read, Rocket Writes a Story, and especially Rocket's Mighty Words. (Read my reviews here.)