Book Review: Alphabet City

Book # 23

Book Image:

Bibliographic Citation:

Alphabet City.

By Stephen T. Johnson. Illus. by author.

1995. 32 p. Viking, $14.99. (9780670856312)

Age Group:

Toddler – Preschool

Genre:
Fiction

 Awards:

1995 Caldecott Honor Book

 Topics/Issues:

City, Alphabet, Concept

 ELS promoted:

Letter Knowledge, Print motivation, Print awareness

 Format:

Hardcover.

 Author/Illustrator sites:

http://www.stephentjohnson.com/

 Categorization Tags:

E Johnson

 Annotation:

Paintings of objects in an urban setting present the letters of the alphabet.

Reactions/Observations:

Alphabet City is a great concept book for depicting how the letters can appear everywhere in daily life around the city. The illustrations are realistic and surprising. They are very similar to photographs which are great for sharing the images found around an urban area. I think a more cartoon like appearance would not be able to stress the theme of this unique alphabet book. The only downside would be that because some of the letters are not as obvious, younger children may have difficulty identifying the letters. Children will have to look at the images from different perspectives to find the alphabet in all of these city images. Preschoolers will definitely enjoy it. Toddlers will too, but will have more trouble with the abstract imagery of the alphabet but will still enjoy the letter knowledge practice.