My son really liked this book a lot more than I did, but I found the illustrations amusing and really enjoyed explaining the big words to my son. ( )

Review: This is an amazingly cute alphabet book that is different from any other that I have read. Mordicai creates a personality for each letter and illistrates a monster into each letter. It is done extremely well and I would love to own this book.

Uses: I would use this book to show the variety of alphabet books that have been written. I think this would be great for little boys that hate reading, because it has each letter as a monster. The clever descriptions would pull in reluctant readers.

Genre: Alphabet Book- This book is only an alphabet book with some very funny descriptions of the personality of each letter. It goes through the alphabet from A-Z.

Media: Oil on Paper

Another ABC book much in the same vein as the Z was Zapped and Alison's Zinnia. ( )

Many alphabet books are aggressively "real". They feel they have to be in order to illustrate what the letter stands for. That's cool.

This is different. The author decided to make each individual letter its own character. It's own VILE character, that is. (V is a vegetable vampire, obviously our favorite!) Each letter is in some way influenced by the one next in line... often picking on that one, but sometimes annoyed by it.

The illustrations are suitably "awful", full of teeth and glares (while still being recognizeably letters). And the vocabulary...! A far cry from apples and balls and cats, here the action is all in the adjectives (and sometimes verbs). We get arrogant, voracious, envious, grotesque, cantankerous... well! If this doesn't improve your child's vocabulary, I'll personally send you your money back! (No, no I won't.)

Every library needs this book. I think I'll even buy a few more copies for my niece to give to her pre-k class this year, or her kindergarten class next year! ( )

$6.00/US