Hi Americans. Here is your link to Amazon.com to help you buy this book and anything else on Amazon. If you use it I will make a few pennies! https://amzn.to/3iNpKC2
Hi Canadians. Here is your link to Amazon.ca to help you buy this book and anything else on Amazon.ca If you use it I will make a few pennies. https://amzn.to/3k8J4tS
Thank you!
I love ABC books for their versatility. And this book, An African Alphabet by Order of Canada winner Eric Walters and Illustrated by Sue Todd is a great example of versatility. For the youngest children, an ABC book introduces the alphabet, but as the children get older, they learn many new words and sounds, the beginning of learning a language. And then, once the alphabet is known, they can learn the wide world of ideas, so many words that begin with each letter.
Here we see wonderful African animals, some known to us all, and some unfamiliar. So, the adults reading this book will learn something too. In this book N is for Nandine, which I had to look up to find that it is a West African carnivorous cat (and it is also a plant name). Readers of this book will learn about new animals. That is why I gave it a wide age range even though it is a board book. You can read this book to a wide age range of kids and they will all get something out of it.
Kids and adults will marvel at the astounding illustrations. I’ll bet most kids will not have seen anything like them. The illustrator, Canadian Sue Todd, uses a technique that is not much seen children’s book illustration. Lino cutting is a print-making method based on carving linoleum. It requires the artist work in mirror image, cutting away any part that will not be inked. It is very time consuming and requires an entirely different way of looking at things. Sue Todd mixes this very old technique with digital coloring of her prints. And in this book, what colors they are! Bold, bright, loud, colors and textures as vibrant as an African jungle. The lino technique is particularly perfect for a book about Africa because it touches on ideas of African fabrics and African masks. The animals in this book look you right in the eye. They are mesmerizing.
An African Alphabet by Eric Walters and illustrated by Sue Todd is available from Orca Books, from booksellers who appreciate great art, and from Amazon on the link I give below.
Take a look at this book and let me know what you think of it.
Thank you. Please subscribe to my youtube channel Great Books for Kids Reviewed by Michelle Marcotte!