3/27/2022 Picture Book Round-Up: Alphabet Books

Sasha Wallace
Mar 27, 2022
8 min read

I’m obsessed with getting books for my nephew. I want him to have a veritable mountain of books by the time he’s able to walk. Though I enjoy getting books that my sister & brother-in-law can read to him, I am also thinking of the future, when the beloved munchkin takes the first literary steps of his own. Therefore, this week’s blog post spotlights some of the best lesser-known Alphabet books to jumpstart literacy. With all due respect to classics like Chicka Chicka Boom Boom & the more advanced (super droll) P is for Pterodactyl, these books deserve their moment in the sun.

Picture Book 1 (because sometimes you have to wake up & smell the roses – or at least read about them)

Title: The Flower Alphabet Book

Author: Jerry Pallotta

Illustrator: Leslie Evans

Recommended for: Pre-K & K

Basic plot: As with most Alphabet books, each page represents a visual tribute to a different letter, using flowers as the vehicle (i.e., sunflower for “s”, crocus for “c”, etc.) It goes in chronological order & is very illustration-heavy, a feast for the eyes.

Why I love it: They say brevity is the soul of wit, but beauty should be the soul of brevity. We love flowers because they are transient – they only last a short while, so they absolutely must be enjoyed thoroughly & all plans must be dropped when they poke up out of the ground. They are also extremely fragile, easily trampled & prone to wilting, so their delicacy adds a sense of urgency & wonder to beholding them. There’s a reason that centuries of humankind have filled gardens with them, dedicated poems to them, garnished salads with them, wrapped marigolds around their deities & built entire economies off them (the history of the tulip alone has enough intrigue & cutthroat commerce to build an HBO pilot upon).

Even in my own lifetime, I’ve planned trips around flowers –the Giant Victoria Water Lilies in bloom at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens or the pickerelweed glittering purple at Payne’s Prairie like a field of amethysts (both in Gainesville); sunflowers in Clermont or long flights to Montana to see the wildflowers coat the mountainside in Glacier National Park; hunting for the ghost orchid at Corkscrew or realizing with dismay that the Corpse Flower at the University of Minnesota wasn't in bloom (probably a good thing, since they smell like rotten meat when they are ripe). One of my favorite memories is Max walking me through a swamp of blue flag at Newnan's Lake nearly a decade ago. The connection I felt to that particular iris was so powerful, it became my wedding flower & was put in every bouquet & corsage, years later.

The pickerelweed photo below was taken by my friend, Roy Herrera, one of Gainesville’s finest nature photographers, & reposted here with his permission. It is my favorite picture of one of Florida's signature flowers. Doesn't it look like lavender? When it is pickerelweed season, drivers clog the margins of 441 to take pictures of the endless stretches of purple. If you're lucky, you'll see gator, bison, or wild mustangs gamboling in the mix.

Flowers are as ubiquitous as sunlight in a desert. Whether it’s a romance novel that is set in a lavender field, dresses with floral patterns, or the hordes of men at Publix purchasing last-minute Valentine’s Day blooms, flowers are a part of our cultural makeup, the way we express love & springtime & contentment. Not to mention the amount of small businesses that single-handedly keep stores like Etsy running with their flower coasters & resin molds alone.

So, it’s awesome that this book intertwines the most basic units of the English language with these burgeoning buds. Makes you think of Ewan McGregor in Big Fish, don’t it?

Here’s me (in a fabulous cat sweater, mind you) trying to recreate that scene last week at Gibbs Gardens in north Georgia:

Where can you find it? Amazon, eBay, AbeBooks, Thriftbooks, OverDrive (cheapest $3.72 & up, used).

Extension activity: The sky is the limit with this topic. You could have your kiddo listen to flower-themed songs & do lyrical analyses. For example:

“Field of Flowers” by Sixpence None the Richer
“Kiss From a Rose” by Seal
“Sunflower” by Swae Lee
“Daisies” by Katy Perry
“Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music soundtrack

You can also do an I Spy of flowers on the next long drive you take, identifying as many as you can. Picking wildflower bouquets is a must at least once during your youth. If there’s a local festival – like the sunflowers at Southern Hill Farm in Clermont – have a go & wander through the rows with your arms spread wide, just relishing nature. If you’re going on vacation anytime soon, try to check the area for any blooming garden exhibits or flower must-sees, such as California’s Antelope Valley, with its desert poppies, or Virginia’s Bull Run trail, scattered with bluebells.

I recommend coughing up the cash to do a nature walk with an experienced guide, such as Green Deane, so you can forage the tasty buds & figure out which are medicinal, poisonous, culinary-grade, etc. If you just want to view them, contact the nearest botanical gardens to see what's in season.

For foodies, make a salad & add edible flowers (they sell them in this package at Whole Foods) or utilize nasturtiums to give it a peppery kick:

Aspiring artists may enjoy flower coloring books. You can also spatially sort flowers into color categories to practice memorization of R.O.Y.G.B.I.V.

I also suggest going to Dollar Tree or Hobby Lobby & letting your kiddo make their own bouquet based on what appeals to them. You can even challenge them to use a different flower of each letter to practice the alphabet. Buy ribbons or scraps of lace to wrap the bundle in & put it proudly on display for your kiddo to feel proud of.

There are dozens of poems to be paired with flower-mongering. You could sift through some of the more famous ones, or have your kiddo finish their own “Roses are red, violets are blue” couplet. Petal to the metal!

*Warning – some of the pictures in the margin are unexplained & a bit offbeat. There’s a donkey-headed man conversing with a woman (I’m guessing the reference is to Titania & Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream); there’s also a devil glaring at royalty on the Queen Anne’s lace page. I didn’t feel it was inappropriate, but I included that picture below so parents can make an informed choice*

Picture Book 2 (Capital One: What’s in your cabinet?)

Title: The Spice Alphabet Book

Author: Jerry Pallotta

Illustrator: Leslie Evans

Recommended for: Pre-K & K

Basic plot: Spices rock.

Why I love it: So many random reasons. Irish sea moss, of all things. A part where the author legitimately writes “…but bears cannot read this book.” Love letters to yaupon, wasabi, zatar, even quinine out of nowhere. You just have no idea what you’re going to get, because the cultures are balanced in representation & the pictures range from back-in-the-day to über modern. I love how cool facts accompany each painstaking drawing, so kiddos can delve deeper the next time they add oregano to their omelet.

Jerry Pallotta is the King of Alphabet books. He has a 20+ book series, found here:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/C0H/jerry-pallottas-alphabet-books?page=1

From skulls to construction terms, vegetables to frogs, no stone is left unturned. This particular book made me legitimately want to go all the way to Vermont to tap trees for maple syrup. It was that compelling to me.

Where can you find it? This one seems to have been re-issued with the new title “The Yummy Alphabet Book”. I recommend sticking with the first edition, though it is harder to find. If you can locate a copy (probably a library binding), count yourself lucky. I’ve found a few on Thriftbooks & AbeBooks starting at $8.60 & up, used.

Extension activity: You can have your kiddo debate which spice is the most important in the book. Then, elevate the debate by asking them which one the world couldn’t function without, in the book or not (ex. salt, pepper, vanilla, chocolate, garlic, etc.) Before the conversation is exhausted, have them relate to you what their favorite is to taste & smell.

You can do a sort of Iron Chef, Jr. where you assign your kiddo a secret seasoning or spice & everything they cook must have that in it.

Conversely, they can choose a spice they haven’t heard of before & you can all go out to dinner at a restaurant that has it for them to taste-test & rate on a scorecard. I’ve even heard of people doing mustard tastings with pretzels & hot dog franks.

You can assign them one spice to learn the history of, like coffee or cinnamon. Because many spices used the Silk Road to disperse, their histories promise to be nuanced & fascinating to unravel. I would even finalize that with a smell-test of different spices, blindfold on. Award a prize for how many spices they can properly identify.

Since Alphabet books aren’t rigorous & are meant to be used as springboards to deepen comprehension of print, I suggest getting lined handwriting paper & having your kiddo practice each letter, capital & lowercase, as they encounter & revisit them. Give them short, two-or-three letter words to practice before graduating them to family names & more common items.

My last suggestion? Find an ethnic market near you. I prefer Indian bazaars & Middle Eastern wares, but go with whatever cuisine speaks to you. Roam the spice aisle & find a new tea to brew or leaf to put in your soup. You could always do the Spice & Tea Exchange, but I prefer to patronize local businesses that are more authentic. In this way, I've encountered safflower, mallow petals, sumac, fresh ground cardamom & other beloved now-staples of my kitchen.

Picture Book 3 (because they are all the rage right now)

Title: The Unicorn Alphabet

Author: Marianna Mayer

Illustrator: Michael Hague

Recommended for: Grades 2-3 unless read to

Basic plot: Follow a pearly-white unicorn through pages about fruits, flowers, serpents, & folklore. The writing is more advanced than the previous two selections, so scaffolding is suggested.

Why I love it: It has a narwhal in it. It has a unicorn eating a pomegranate. It has my favorite word in the English language, zephyr. Does it get better than this? Not on Earth.

Where can you find it? Amazon, eBay, AbeBooks, Thriftbooks (cheapest $2.99 & up, used).

Extension activity: Have your child make their own Alphabet book based on a topic that interests them, such as candy bars or sports figures or even Disney movies. You can also pair this with the earlier blog post about the graphic novel The Last Unicorn.

Please play The Jackson 5 while you’re at it.

Picture Book 4 (because if you can write it, you can eat it)

Title: Eating the Alphabet

Author & Illustrator: Lois Ehlert

Recommended for: Grades K-1

Basic plot: The author walks you through the consecutive letters of the English alphabet, using fruits & veggies as her launchpad.

Why I love it: The illustrations are very reminiscent of the late, great Eric Carle. Also, it is quite adventurous, with huckleberries, currants, parsnips, ugli fruit & even quince, featuring both uppercase & lowercase spellings, too. It is visually very satisfying just to flip through.

Where can you find it? Amazon, eBay, AbeBooks, Thriftbooks, OverDrive, free on Kindle Unlimited (cheapest $1.21 & up, used).

Extension activity: I think another taste-test of these items is in order. Choose ones that you haven’t had before, be brave & take a leap of faith. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by starfruit & figs. You’ll despise gooseberries. You’ll have mixed feelings on endive & you’ll be neutral about nectarines. Most kids HATE eating their veggies, so if you can make it fun & engaging for them to do so, you’re ahead of the game. Perhaps organize it as a scavenger hunt, so they have to search for the morsels in unexpected places.

They can also list their favorite food as “substitutes” for each letter. For example, “p” is for pizza!