Mind Your Ps & Qs! AlphaBlock by Christopher Francescelli

Let us look at LETTERS!

Christopher Francescelli's small board book, Alphablock (Abrams Appleseed Books) gives small children a chance to learn their letters--in several ways. Large, die-cut block letters, attached at the central scene are there to be looked at and touched from all angles as they overlay one word that demonstrates their sound.

A is, of course, for APPLE, and behind the full-page-sized letter itself, little readers can see a little wicker basket filled with apples.

B is for BALLOON, fat, round, and curvy. D is for DOG, a little DACHSHUND, an elongated wiener dog who practically wiggles off the page.

Each letter gets its own noun, even that one that activates the ticklebox of little kids, U is for UNDERWEAR! All except for that unruly Z, which ZOOMS right off the page.

Illustrator Peskimo offers the young reader thick cut-out block capital letters that can be experienced as the initial letter of words or as pure shape, with sharp points, squared-off bases, and triangles, circles, semi-circles, and angles to be explored tactilely with the fingertips, making use of two senses to help the learning process. Behind the letters themselves, artist Peskimo offers old-fashioned vignettes, temptingly partly revealed behind the letters--a hammer, a well-tended garden, even an octopus, some predictable, some unexpected. "A sharply designed package," says Publishers Weekly.

Companion early learning books include Countablock (Alphablock) Cityblock (Alphablock) and Dinoblock (Alphablock)