[Narrator] The following program is dedicated to Kurt Vonnegut, an American author.

In his book, "Palm Sunday," he points out that our ability to read when combined with libraries makes us the freest of women and men and children.

He reminds us that books still have advantages over TV, and he says, why.

♪ Oh, I can't believe ♪ ♪ in everything I read.

♪ ♪ Little boy blue, ♪ ♪ a lady with a shoe ♪ and a dish ♪ ♪ run off with a spoon.

♪ ♪ The hickory dickory dock, ♪ ♪ a scholar, he's ♪ late to school, ♪ ♪ and I like a cow, ♪ ♪ I jump over the moon.

♪ ♪ Rick Sebak> These strange designs are letters.

Letters in the Russian or Cyrillic alphabet.

While they're less familiar than the Latin or Roman characters, which we use in English, they are no less logical.

All letters or characters in all alphabets are essentially just lines, and certain arbitrary designs that have come to represent sounds or words.

Letters are merely symbols, and these symbols make sense to us because we understand what they represent.

We are accustomed to them.

We all learned them when we were young, or we tried to anyway.

At a very early age, children begin to encounter the 26 designs we call letters.

[toddler] A, apple, B, bird.

Rick Sebak> The fact that children can get the hang of these incredibly complex and difficult symbols should offer some indication of the awesome abilities of the young when it comes to learning anything.

When dealing with the concept of letters in an alphabet, obviously a little careful instruction can make things a lot easier.

And apparently the earlier you try, the better.

There are hundreds of books, maybe thousands, designed to help teach the alphabet to children.

We can't look at them all in half an hour, so we've selected a group of some of the most notable books, old as well as new, which present the alphabet in some fashion.

If you know an abecedarian, that's someone who's learning the alphabet, these are the books you want to know and to share.

There's a long history of alphabet books, perhaps as long as the history of printing itself.

In his introduction to "The New England Primer," Paul Leicester Ford writes, Mr.

Ford includes several different versions of the Puritans rhyming alphabet, which was used for many years by both teachers and parents.

Illustrated with woodcuts as many early children's books were, The rhyme begins: "A, In Adam's Fall We finned all, B, This Book attend, Thy Life to mend.

C, The Cat does play, And after flay."

Ford reports that all the verses were changed often except the first.

The reference to Adam's fall, which to the Puritans was the most important event in history.

As more and more printers became aware of the market for inexpensive children's books, the alphabet book, or abecedarium came into its own.

There were no careful records kept of the number of alphabet books published in the 19th century, but huge printings and inexpensive bindings made them available to nearly all segments of the population.

There were alphabets of birds, alphabets of country life.

Many alphabets of occupations like, "F" begins Fishmonger, who will try to sell good fish to passers by.

There were alphabets that featured a potpourri of objects and animals, and dozens that featured names of children.

In one book, "B" is for Brian.

I'm sorry to say, he took a young bird from its warm nest one day.

Perhaps the most common was the apple pie alphabet, which was often included in collections of nursery rhymes.

Each letter of the alphabet features a character who does something to the apple pie.

In 1886, Kate Greenaway, a prominent 19th century illustrator, did a version of the "A Apple Pie" rhyme which kids today may still enjoy.

On a couple of the pages, including the "J Jumped For It" page.

The apple pie hovers like a flying saucer on the right side of the page.

Who knows what sort of extraterrestrial forces were influencing Kate Greenaway.

Edward Lear, the genius of nonsense, wrote many different alphabets.

One of which also begins with the apple pie.

"A was once an apple-pie, Pidy, Widy, Tidy, Pidy, Nice insidy, Apple-pie!"

His extraordinary gift for nonsense verse distinguishes all his ABC books.

In most of them, for the letter X, he points to the Persian emperor Xerxes, who appears in many of the 19th century alphabets, but seems forgotten in the 20th century books.

A great collection of 100 19th century rhyming alphabets in English was published by Southern Illinois University Press in 1972.

It features many alphabets from the library of Ruth M. Baldwin, and it's a true treasure of children's publishing.

Some of the older books are occasionally reprinted in the new addition.

"Old Aunt Elspa's ABC," originally imprinted in the year of Grace, 1884, was republished in 1978 by the Scholar Press in London.

It's addressed to "All you Book-loving Chubbies," and it includes H for Harp, Ha!

Ha!

Ha!

Hautboy and Higgle with funny woodcuts by Joseph Crawhall.

80 years passed between the publication of Crawhall's alphabet and a more recent example, "John Burningham's ABC."

Many critics consider it one of the best modern alphabet books, especially good for a baby's first introduction to the concept of letters.

Joan I. Glazer and Gurney Williams, the third recommend this Burningham book in their text, "Introduction to Children's Literature."

They point out that: As each page is opened, the right hand side is a bright, easily understood picture.

The left hand page shows the letter in both uppercase and lowercase configurations, and the word which corresponds to the picture is spelled out for readers.

These Burningham pages are exemplary for several reasons.

First of all, the illustrations are not cluttered.

There's usually only one item in the picture, and when several examples of the same item are pictured, they are easily identified and understood.

For example, when a child sees so many different sizes and shapes of birds, the concept of bird is also being explained.

Not all birds are alike.

John Warren Stewig wrote the text "Children in Literature," which contains an excellent chapter on alphabet books and what they can teach.

He stresses this point: "Brian Wildsmith's ABC" is a good example of a simple alphabet book, bright, bold, colorful.

Let's see how it could be used to teach the three concepts, which Stewig feels alphabet books can convey to children.

One purpose of an alphabet book, according to Stewig, is to teach letter sequence.

There are a few unusual books which present the letters at random, in no particular order, but Wildsmith's normal presentation, A for Apple, B for Butterfly, C for Cat, D for Dog, et cetera, is the most common and useful approach.

Kids begin to pick up the sequence of the letters.

A second purpose of the alphabet book is to teach letter form.

Wildsmith's presentation of the letters and words on the left hand page is excellent.

Both lowercase and uppercase letters are shown in white, followed by other letters in colors which spell out the words.

The third thing, which Stewig feels an alphabet book and teach is letter style.

He says, Wildsmith's book is not very helpful in that respect.

His typeface is uniform throughout the book.

He doesn't vary the style of his letters.

However, that doesn't lessen the value of his book in any way, especially for young children who can be easily confused with several different configurations of supposedly the same letter.

Another book which might be better for teaching the concept of letter style is Dorothy Schmiderer "The Alphabeast Book."

She calls her book an abecedarium, a word which means an alphabet book or primer.

On each two page spread in her book, the letter in question transforms itself into an animal or beast whose name begins with that letter.

This "b" metamorphosis into a butterfly.

In the second panel of each transformation, the basic style or shape of the letter is still recognizable.

Stewig points out, too, that: Obviously.

this is Helen Oxenbury's "ABC of things."

It has been recommended by Zena Sutherland, who calls the pictures imaginative and humorous, as well as by Charlotte S. Huck, who describes it as: This variety of objects allows parents and teachers to call attention to the sound of the letters.

For example, when you hear baby, badger, baker, bear, bird, you begin to get an idea of the "buh" sound of a "b."

The sounds of the letters, the style of letters, their forms, and their sequence in the alphabet, all these concepts can be taught with alphabet books.

In addition, John Stewig also identifies three visual and verbal skills which alphabet books can help to develop.

These 3 basic literacy skills are the ability to describe, the ability to compare, and the ability to value certain examples or pictures over others.

Parents and teachers can definitely help to encourage these literacy skills by working with a book like Robert Crowther's "The Most Amazing Hide-and-Seek Alphabet Book," which also helps to develop hand and eye coordination.

It's an unusual and somewhat fragile book full of pop up style gimmicks, but it deserves respect.

Each of the bold black lowercase letters moves in one direction or another to reveal an animal that's playing hide and seek behind the alphabet.

It's fun and funny, and it can stimulate many of the literacy skills which Stewig has identified.

The first of the literacy skills is the ability to describe what one sees.

This most amazing hide and seek alphabet book is especially good for stimulating descriptions.

Just ask questions.

What do you see?

What's that?

Questions make books more interesting and amusing.

The second literacy skill, which Stewig expects alphabet books to encourage, is the ability to compare.

He recommends choosing two quite different books so the contrast is apparent.

You might select a book like Feodor Rojankovsky's "Animals In The Zoo" to compare with the most amazing hide and seek alphabet book.

Both feature animal examples, but Rojankovsky's drawings are much more realistic than Crowther's cartoon like illustrations.

Showing a child the different drawings of giraffes, for example, can help to develop an awareness of visual styles.

The third of Stewig's literacy skills is the ability to value the examples, to show a preference, to make a judgment.

It's a sophisticated skill which may be easier to encourage in slightly older children.

It involves choosing favorites.

When you ask, which do you like more?

the child is challenged to select a preferred style.

When you ask, why do you like that one more?

you're eliciting a higher level response.

Stewig reminds everyone that: The ability to respond verbally is what is important.

Taste and critical standards can be developed over the years to come.

When an adult, however, selects an alphabet book, there are several criteria which should be kept in mind.

First of all, if the book is to be used only to introduce the alphabet, just 1 or 2 items should be presented on a page.

This is Celestino Piatti's "Animal ABC," which features poems in English by Jon Reid.

Each letter usually gets only one item, D for dolphins, P for penguins.

The pictures are big, bold, and colorful.

The examples for each letter are a second point to consider.

Depending on the age of the child, the example should be recognizable, easily identified, and meaningful.

Several of Piatti and Reid's examples are a bit unusual.

Ural owl for "U" is not a common animal, even for adults.

The similarity between "U" and the "O" vowel sound can be additionally confusing.

Stewig suggest that a balance between the known and the unknown might be best.

He writes: A third point to consider when choosing alphabet books is the use of animals or objects which have more than one name.

For example, In Wanda Gag's classic, "The ABC Bunny," she calls this little creature a bunny, and her second page shows a large red "B" for Bunny snug a-bed.

That seems simple enough.

But if we look at Celestino Piatti's "Animal ABC" again, we see that the same creature comes much later in the alphabet under "H" for Hare.

In the Rojankovsky book, that same little animal is even later, under "J" for Jackrabbit.

And in Crowther's book, when you pull the tab beside the "r," the same animal emerges to munch some lettuce, and this time he's called a rabbit.

This may seem picky and silly to some adults, but there are so many words and animals to use as examples that it seems best to avoid the few who have so many different names.

Beware of the bun rabbs.

The fourth point to remember, the names of the examples should begin with the most common sound of the letter.

"G" for Goat as okay.

"G" for Gnu is not so hot.

This is Bruno Munari's "ABC," and while many of the pages are excellent examples like "B" for a Blue Butterfly, a Banana, and a Book.

Munari does include a few things which can be confusing to the young children who will read his book, like "E" for Eye.

Until you start to read and understand that letters in English can have many different sounds, it's difficult to grasp unusual or archaic uses of various letters.

Munari also uses several difficult examples on the letter "K," a Knothole between a Key and a Knife, seven Knots on a string, and a Kite.

The Key and the Kite are good examples.

The Knife, the Knothole, and the Knots all begin with a silent "K" and can be misleading.

It's best to keep all these considerations in mind when selecting an alphabet book.

Not all alphabet books are as simple and straightforward as the ones we've looked at so far.

Take a quick look at Ed Emberley's "ABC."

It's a sometimes silly and yet useful book about how each of the capital letters is made.

The pictures are highly detailed and sometimes a bit confusing.

But careful study of the pictures can be very profitable.

For instance, these dogs.

They're digging a "D."

The four panels show how a "D" is drawn, and the colorful cartoons are full of items with "D," daisies, a dump truck, and lots of dirt.

This Emberley "ABC" is a good example of a popular kind of alphabet book, one in which children are challenged to name all the items in the picture that begin with the letter being illustrated.

Unfortunately, Emberley complicates matters by using some unorthodox examples.

For the vowel "I," he uses the word "PIGS," which has the "I" sound sandwiched between a "P" and a "G," and for "N," he cites "LION," which has the "N" sound at the end.

This can be confusing and unexpected, even for adults.

Don't ignore it, however.

It's an unusual book that may require some special explanations when you share it with a child.

Another little book that challenges children to find all the words that begin with a certain letter is "A Little Alphabet" by Trina Schart Hyman.

This tiny book, just over four inches by five inches, is filled with her fine pen and ink drawings that somewhat resemble the large, intricately designed letters on illuminated manuscripts.

Consider "L."

Here's a young lady licking a lollipop as she looks at a lily.

At the bottom, near a lemon and lime, a lonely lizard is looking at her lantern.

There's a ladybug on one leaf of the lily, which is leaning a little.

It's a beautiful book.

It's also a good example of what is called a potpourri alphabet book.

Potpourri because there's a wide variety of items that aren't really related to each other in any special way.

There is also a potpourri of words and images in Anne Rockwell's book, "Albert B. Cub and Zebra."

It's a wordless storybook in 26 pictures, each filled with items that begin with the indicated letter.

It's another good book for developing the ability to describe what's going on.

One of the most striking and memorable alphabet books ever created is "Anno's Alphabet," which is subtitled "An Adventure in Imagination."

Each of the letters by Japanese illustrator Mitsumasa Anno, is drawn as though it were carved from wood, but incredible wood that bends and twists and reconnects in a marvelous display of optical illusions.

There are also pictures of objects which illustrate each letter.

For "T," there's a wooden typewriter that only types T's for "D," there's a die with a devil inside, or a demon.

In the elaborate pen and ink borders, there're even more examples of things that begin with the various letters.

Here's the letter "P," surrounded by pumpkins, peas, a few parrots, and some poppies, too.

the items which illustrate the letter "P" are two unlikely pen nibs, which have points like pencils.

They are labeled, "Handmade by M.

Anno."

And in this key to the pictures at the back of the book, Anno identifies them as pen and pencil.

A few pages later, the letter "R" is shown to be just a pea, with one section lowered.

That explains the groove and the screw on the front of the "P."

Obviously, this "Anno's Alphabet" is a very sophisticated and intricate alphabet book, intended for adults as well as for children.

Another striking and original potpourri type book is "Hosie's Alphabet," which was a Caldecott Honor book in 1973.

The pictures were painted by Leonard Baskin with words provided by his children, Hosea Tobias and Lisa Baskin.

The paintings, mostly watercolors, are nearly magical.

The words include some difficult and learned adjectives.

This is a bumptious baboon, a furious fly, a primordial protozoa.

In addition to potpourri, another type of alphabet book is the book, composed of related examples.

The most common related examples are animals.

As in the Rojankovsky book, The Crowther pop up book, and Dorothy Schmiderer's "Alphabeast."

There are others, too, such as by Jan Garten's "The Alphabet Tale," illustrated by Muriel Batherman.

It includes a pun in its title and a rhyming riddle for each letter.

Take "R" for instance.

His forefather was the hat of Daniel Boone.

This tail is the tail of the furry... and kids try to fill in the blank before they turn the page to see the raccoon.

Another good animal alphabet is "Q is for Duck" by Mary Elting and Michael Folsom, with pictures by Jack Kent.

It's called an alphabet guessing game.

It's a set of unexpected letters, coupled with animals that would be elsewhere in any regular abecedarium.

"Q" is for Duck.

Why?

Because a duck quacks.

"R" is for Lion.

Why?

Because a lion roars.

"S" is for Camel.

Why?

Because a camel spits.

There are at least a few answers like that that aren't immediately apparent.

Fritz Eichenberg created his alphabet book, "Ape In A Cape" in the early 1950s, and it's been popular ever since.

It's a related example alphabet book.

Each letter is illustrated with an animal and an outlandish situation or costume.

Besides the title character, there's a carp with a harp and this rat with a bat, among others.

Eichenberg drawings are silly and memorable, and some of the rhyming captions are unforgettable.

A vulture with culture.

There are also related example alphabet books which don't use animals.

Michael Deasy wrote a related example abecedarium called "CityABC's" in the early 1970s.

The black and white photographs are by Robert Perron.

For each letter, there's a scene from city life.

"H" is for hard hat.

Why must the hard hat wear a hard hat?

"Because I don't have a hard head," The hard hat said.

In Maurice Sendak's "Nutshell Library," he includes an alphabet book called "Alligators All Around," which can be considered as a related examples book because these alligators are featured in every alliterative example, entertaining elephants, getting giggles, having headaches, ordering oatmeal.

A third general type of alphabet book is the kind which tells a sequential story using a series of words that follow the sequence of the alphabet.

"Apricot ABC" by Miska Miles is an example of this kind.

"A For the Ark" is also a sequential story alphabet book written and illustrated by Roger Duvoisin.

It's the story of Noah and all the animals he loads on to his ark.

There are several examples for most letters.

"P" for Pig's Penguins, Panthers, Porcupines, Pelicans, and Panda Bears.

Stan Mack is a bit more clever in his alphabetical tale called "The King's Cat is Coming!"

It's an alphabet of adjectives.

In what looks like a Renaissance city, all the people are speculating about the impending arrival of their monarch's newest pet.

Stan Mack's drawings of cats are hilarious and accurate illustrations of the adjectives.

The people say, "Maybe he's an Angry cat.

He might be a Bashful cat.

Suppose she's a Curious cat... or a Dangerous cat.

They say the King's cat is... Elegant, Fat, and Gigantic.

The whole book is a delight and an effective demonstration of the power of adjectives when describing something.

It's probably not an exaggeration to say that probably every major children's author and illustrator has put together some kind of alphabet book.

There's "Pooh's Alphabet Book" by A.A.

Milne with illustrations by E.H.

Shepard.

It includes bits and pieces from all the Pooh books and uses the letters for very distinctively Poohish purposes.

Crockett Johnson, who created the classic "Harold and the Purple Crayon," put together "Harold's ABC," which is a sequential story mixed with a potpourri of subjects, all of which are made from a letter.

"B" becomes a stack of books.

"C" becomes a cake.

"H" a hobby horse, and "R" a rhinoceros.

The stylized treatment of the letters is ingenious, making each one into a familiar object.

H. A. Rey does some of the same visual tricks with the letters in his book, "Curious George Learns the Alphabet."

And he even manages to include a picture for both uppercase and lowercase letters.

One example, the capital "M" becomes a mailman.

The small "m," a mouse.

There are other alphabet books that assume you know the alphabet and move on to more difficult concepts, just using the alphabet as an organizational tool.

"Jambo means hello," is one of these more complex books.

It's a Swahili alphabet book written by Muriel Feelings with pictures by Tom Feelings.

It's a beautiful book with outstanding drawings.

It also shows where Swahili is spoken in Africa, and it introduces a wide variety of words, all explained in the context of their tribal origins.

"U" is for Uzuri, which means beauty.

The author explains, "Beauty means different things in different parts of Africa.

In one it is a woman with a clean-shaven head; in another it is a great crown of braided hair.

Another sophisticated alphabet book which also deals with Africa is the 1977 Caldecott winner, "Ashanti To Zulu" by Margaret Musgrove.

For each letter of the alphabet, Musgrove introduces a different group and a custom important to each.

The stylish and highly patterned illustrations are by Leo and Diane Dillon.

For "X," they show the Xhosa people.

"Ashanti To Zulu" is definitely a book for older children and even for adults.

The realm of alphabet books is obviously unlimited.

So if you do know an abecedarian, there are obviously many books that you will want to share.

Not only are they effective tools for teaching a number of concepts, but they can be visual treats of the highest order.

When a child begins to recognize the shapes and sounds of the strange lines we call letters, the process of reading is just beginning, but the beauty and wisdom of books can be sensed by everyone, even before they begin to understand how letters make words.

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