Animalia by Graeme Base (my alphabet book example)

          Since we mentioned alphabet books in class last Monday, I wanted my first entry for this class to be on my favorite alphabet book growing up, Graeme Base's Animalia, first published in Australia in 1986. I loved this book when I was a child! Animalia, like most English-language alphabet books, goes in alphabetical order from A to Z. Each letter has an alliterative phrase, meaning that all of the letters in the phrase start with that particular letter, and a beautiful illustrative scene depicting the phrase. The phrases are fun(ny) and often wacky, which makes them – and their scenes – very memorable. For the letter L, the phrase is “Lazy lions lounging in the local library," and beneath the phrase one sees two lions lying down on a pile of books in a library. But what makes Animalia move beyond the average alphabet book is its creativity and complexity. There are layers and layers of images within each letter’s larger illustrative scene that start with that letter which make this book very interesting and fun to read. For example, in the letter L’s scene, one of the lions is gnawing on the book Lassie Come Home, a lobster and a lizard are also lounging with the lions, and there is a ladder and leaves in the background. Each scene in the book is an intricate alliterative puzzle that children can – and will – spend lots of time trying to solve. I know I did! I loved looking at each of the stunning illustrations and I would spend hours trying to find all of the smaller alliterative images within the larger scenes. Each time I looked at the images I was convinced that I would find new images that I was sure I missed before. I recommend this alphabet book not only for preschoolers and emergent readers, but for any reader - child and adult - with a sense of humor, a love of puzzles, and an eye for wonderfully rich illustrations.  

          --Ashley Cleeves