Take Away the A
Michael Escoffier, illustrated by Kris Di Giacomo
ISBN: 9781592701568
A combo alphabet and phonics procession, as if Edward Gorey worked in larger frames, with saturated, textured colors.
I really like this book. I love this method of progressing though the alphabet, through phonemes and rhymes and subtractions. Let me explain. For the letter A, we begin with a lovely illustration of a trophy podium with first, second and third levels, with a hairy and be-toothed beast holding the trophy. A duck is second, and a fish is third, while a vulture photographer commemorates the event. What on earth does this have to do with the letter A? Our text explains: "Without the A the BEAST is BEST."
Isn't that simply the coolest way to explain so many things about our language all at once? I love it!
So, through the alphabet we go, with silly and sometimes slightly macabre illustrations guiding us to understanding: a pirate parrot illustrates that "Without the F, the SCARF hides a SCAR," a anthropomorphic empty glove follows an octopus through a crosswalk, because "Without the G, the GLOVE falls in LOVE" (with an octopus, of course, because there are many legs, tentacles, finger-sleeves, er, whatever!) and a very sweet spread leads us to see that "Without the I, STAIRS lead to the STARS."
The whole alphabet is like that, (well, except for z, because poor z just doesn't ever get any love.) although some of the latter, and less-well-represented letters have to stretch to get a story.
This would be excellent for teachers trying to explain phonemes and rhyming words.
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