Once Upon an Alphabet

Starred review from October 20, 2014
With wry humor, equally droll ink illustrations, and a solid dose of alliteration, Jeffers (the Hueys series) creates delightful mini-narratives for each letter of the alphabet. In the B story, "Burning a Bridge," the antagonistic relationship between neighbors Bernard and Bob reaches a breaking point: "But Bob learned an important lesson that day" after he burns down the bridge separating their homesâand traps himself on Bernard's side. In addition to the rampant alliteration in the stories and poems ("Mary is made of matter./ So is her mother./ And her mother's moose"), Jeffers's illustrations are full of unnamed people and objects that correspond to each letter, providing opportunities for interactive reading. Grim touches appear here and thereâbecause half of Helen's house fell into the sea, getting up on the wrong side of the bed proves disastrousâbut the overall mood is one of playful mischief. One thing is certain: if Jeffers's determined problem-solving duo, Owl and Octopusâwho pop up throughout, rescuing drowning cucumbers and recovering stolen x-ray glassesâdon't get to headline future books of their own, it'll be downright criminal. Ages 3â5.

Starred review from September 1, 2014
This amazing "menagerie" presents an original story for all 26 letters of the alphabet. Opening with A, "An Astronaut" tells of astronaut-in-training Edmund, hampered by his fear of heights. "Cup in the Cupboard" for letter C relates the sad story of Cup, whose move from cupboard to windowsill ends disastrously. In "Danger Delilah," letter D introduces a fearless superheroine, while L's tale, "The Lumberjack's Light," stars Jack, struck by lightning so often he doesn't need a plug for his light. "An Enigma" for letter E asks "[h]ow many elephants can you fit inside an envelope," referring readers to letter N and "Nearly Nine Thousand" for the answer. In letter J's, "Jelly Door," Jemima makes her front door out of jelly to make retrieving forgotten keys easy, while in letter K's, "The King," a king forgets his keys. The 26 amusing ministories come full circle with letter Z's, "Zeppelin," in which astronaut Edmund returns aboard a zeppelin. The silly, spare, slightly surreal text occasionally rhymes and endlessly surprises. Jeffers introduces each letter and story title on a separate, colored page, featuring the letter in childlike lettering. Deceptively naive pen, ink and watercolor illustrations in subdued blacks and grays on white backgrounds add to the overall whimsy. Reappearing visual elements provide intertextual humor. An utterly delightful alphabet book. (Picture book. 5-8)

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Starred review from October 1, 2014

Gr 1-4-Jeffers's empathic nature, evident from his sympathetic renderings of Drew Daywalt's beleaguered crayons in The Day the Crayons Quit (Philomel, 2013), here extends to the hardworking letters. This eccentric and entertaining anthology is introduced by an eloquent syllogism about the relationship of letters, words, and stories. While each four-page tale showcases a (seemingly) hand-drawn capital and lowercase letter, and many of the words-and unnamed objects-begin with the corresponding letter, this is not your mother's abecedarium. It is a framework for Jeffers's intriguing worldview, combining ludicrous juxtapositions and situations and a great capacity for gentleness. Some passages are scientific: "Mary is made of matter....she got sucked through a microscope and became the size of a molecule." The facing page shows Mary floating under the lens. The blackboard-style background is filled with "molecular" diagrams (mattresses, a moose, mums). Other sections are a mite macabre: "Jack Stack the Lumberjack has been struck by lightning one hundred and eleven times...." The lightning illuminates a skeleton, but after the page turn, the man appears in his jammies, normal, except that he can provide his own electricity. There is humor in the alliteration and mixed-media scenes: a puzzled parsnip, Victor the vanquished "plotting his vengeance," and an enigma featuring elephants and envelopes. The author respects his readers' intelligence, inserting expansive vocabulary, cameos from characters in previous books, people and plot threads that cross stories, and quiet details to discover in subsequent readings. An altogether stimulating, surprising, and satisfying reading experience.-Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Library

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2015
Each letter of the alphabet gets its own little story in this picture book that is much more than a simple set of ABCs. Whimsical, funny, occasionally tragic, and highly entertaining, this collection of (sometimes) interlocking tales is brilliantly inventive, from A (for astronaut Edmund, who is afraid of heights) to Z (for the zeppelin Edmund flies four daring feet above the ground). Jeffers's loose cartoon style lends itself to visual humor, with lots of sight gags delivered through line and color, such as daredevil Delilah boldly confronting all danger except the bellowing of her father when she's late for dinner. The stories are each four pages long and made up of just a few sentences, which often feature alliteration: "Mary is made of matter. So is her mother. And her mother's moose." The pictures frequently incorporate more words in bubbles, captions, and labels. Each letter brings its own delights, whether it is robots who steal rain clouds because they don't like getting wet or the enigmatic letter Q, in which a uniformed man searches around, under, and behind the book's pages for a missing question. Although alphabet books are usually for younger children, it's older kids who will delight here in the cleverness of the concepts and their execution. susan dove lempke

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)