ABC: Much More Than the Alphabet

SCIENCE, MATH, AND ALPHABETS

	Nerdy Baby ABC Flashcards are not your ordinary A-is-for-Apple flashcards. In these 26 laminated, illustrated cards, aimed at future geeks and scientists, A is for Atom, C for Cell membrane, M for Mandelbrot set, and N for Neuron.
	Lois Ehlert’s Eating the Alphabet runs the gamut from Apricot, Apple Avocado, and Asparagus to Zucchini. A brightly illustrated compendium of multicultural fruits and veggies, including such not-so-common selections as Jicama, Kiwi, Yam, and Xigua. For ages 2-5.
	Anita Lobel’s Alison’s Zinnia (Greenwillow, 1996) is a lovely interlinking alphabet of girls’ names, flower names, and verbs, from “Alison acquired an Amaryllis for Beryl” to the neatly tied up “Zena zeroed in on a Zinnia for Alison.” Illustrated with beautiful and botanically accurate flower paintings. For ages 4-8.
	Mary Azarian’s A Gardener’s Alphabet (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005), illustrated with colored woodcuts, is a collection of 26 alphabetical garden words, beginning with ARBOR, BULBS, and COMPOST. For ages 4-8.
	In the same format, see Azarian’s A Farmer’s Alphabet (David R. Godine, 2009). (APPLE, LAMB, PUMPKIN, ZINNIA.) For ages 4-8.
	By David McLimans, Gone Wild (Walker Children’s Books, 2006) – a Caldecott Honor book – is an alphabet of endangered animals from Chinese Alligator to Grevy’s Zebra. Black-and-white letters are cleverly transmogrified into animals, complete with horns, eyes, tongues, and wings. For ages 4-6.
	Name a topic and Jerry Pallotta has almost certainly written an alphabet book about it. For a complete list – everything from Airplanes, Beetles, and Birds to Vegetables and Yucky Reptiles – see here.
	Particularly fascinating for young scientists is Jerry Pallotta’s The Skull Alphabet Book (Charlesbridge, 2002) which pictures the skulls of 26 different animals (anteater to zebra). The skulls aren’t labeled; readers have to figure out the source for themselves from clues in the text. For ages 5-8.
	In Kjell Sandved’s The Butterfly Alphabet (Scholastic, 1999), readers find the letters of the alphabet in the patterns on butterfly wings – that is, real butterfly wings. The author, a nature photographer, decided to create the book when he found a perfect letter F on the wing of a tropical moth that he was studying under the microscope. Double-page spreads show the whole butterfly or moth with its scientific name, paired with a close-up of the wing showing an alphabet letter pattern. For all ages.
	Available from Butterfly Alphabet, Inc., is a Butterfly Alphabet poster. (There’s also an option to write your name in butterfly wings.)
	By David M. Schwartz, G is for Google (Tricycle Press, 1998) is a math alphabet book, running from A is for Abacus to Z is for Zillion. (In between, Binary, Exponent, Fibonacci,  and X-axis.) Each entry is accompanied by catchy cartoon-style illustrations and two to three pages of reader-friendly explanation. For ages 9-12.
	In David M. Schwartz’s multidisciplinary Q is for Quark (Tricycle Press, 2009) – a science alphabet book – A is for Atom, B for Black Hole, C for Clone, and X for Xylem. Each entry comes with appealing cartoon illustrations and two to three pages of background information and explanation. For ages 9-12.
	My First Physics Poster is a great A to Z infographic poster in which a is for acceleration, c for speed of light in a vacuum, f for frequency, and h for Planck’s constant.

ALPHABETICAL ART

	In Denise Fleming’s Alphabet Under Construction (Square Fish, 2006), artistic Mouse is busily creating an alphabet, using a different creative technique from each letter – for example, Air-brushing the A, Buttoning the B, Carving the C, and Dyeing the D. For ages 3-6.
	From Growing Kinders, Alphabet Under Construction has instructions for making great collage-style alphabet letters.
	From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum ABC (Little, Brown Books, 2002) is a tour of the alphabet through dozens of works of art from the Museum’s collection. A beautiful book for ages 3 and up.
	By Cynthia Weill, ABeCeDarios (Cinco Puntos, 2007) is an alphabet book of Mexican folk art animals, in which animal names are listed in both English and Spanish. The animals are carved and brightly painted sculptures. Grab some modeling clay and make some of your own. For ages 2-4.
	Lucy Mickelthwait’s I Spy: An Alphabet in Art (Greenwillow, 1998) is a collection of 26 famous paintings, among them works by Rousseau, Goya, Chagall, Picasso, Renoir, and Matisse. Each is chosen to illustrate a letter of the alphabet, which often involves a bit of a hunt. The book begins with Rene Magritte’s Son of Man, with its prominent green Apple. For ages 3-8.
	Nathanael Iwata’s Steampunk Alphabet (Cameron + Company, 2013) takes ordinary alphabet-book fare – Apple, Balloon, Candle – and re-images them steampunk-style, in wood and brass, with dials, levers, cogs, and gears.  Included are explanations of the objects’ uses in an imagined steampunk universe. For ages 4 and up.
	In Stephen Johnson’s A is for Art (Simon & Schuster, 2008), there’s more than initially meets the eye. The book consists of 26 original works of abstract art, each containing concealed alphabet letters. For ages 6 and up.
	Some of the most gorgeous alphabets ever are surely the illuminated letters of medieval manuscripts.  Kids can learn about the process of 15th-century book-making in Bruce Robertson’s Marguerite Makes a Book (J. Paul Getty Museum Publications, 1999) in which young Marguerite, when her artist father is injured, takes over and finishes his beautiful hand-written and painted book. Fold-out pages explain the technicalities of the process, including how paints were mixed and gold leaf applied. For ages 7-12.
	This Illuminated Letter project has background information, color photos of examples, and instructions.
	Theodore Menten’s The Illuminated Alphabet (Dover Publications, 1971) is an inexpensive coloring book with 50 detailed black-line medieval letters to color. For ages 8 and up.
	For more resources, see The Middle Ages.
	By Paul Fleischman, with marvelous art by Melissa Sweet, Alpha Maniacs (Candlewick, 2020) – subtitled “Builders of 26 Wonders of the World” – is a fascinating compendium of writers and artists obsessed with words, letters, and wordplay. A great and out-of-the-ordinary read for ages 12 and up.
	Tony Seddon’s Draw Your Own Alphabets (Princeton Architectural Press, 2013) is a workbook with which users learn to draw thirty different creative fonts (and invent some of your own). For ages 10 and up.
	From Wikihow, see How to Create a Font.
	YourFonts.com is an online font generator that allows you to turn your handwriting into a font.