Picture Books That Add Magic to the Alphabet

ABC, it’s easy as 1-2-3, as simple as do-re-mi.

Well, maybe. But think for a moment how complex the alphabet can be. There are long and short vowels and combinations of letters that, together, change the sound of each. Without a thorough understanding of that, reading and writing become impossible.

Rather than static building blocks we use to create words and sounds, letters seem like living, breathing things that can become whatever we want them to. The alphabet isn’t something we learn, it’s something we explore.

In “The Disappearing Alphabet” (Harcourt Brace Children’s Books, 32 pages, $16), the simple rhymes of author Richard Wilbur and the rich drawings of illustrator David Diaz lightheartedly explore ways in which the world would be different if certain letters disappeared.

For example, “If there were no such thing as C,” Wilbur writes, “whole symphonies would be off key, and under every nut-tree, you’d see hipmunks gathering winter food.”

The text first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly last year, but this volume is well worth tracking down, for it pairs the words of former U.S. poet laureate and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Wilbur with the rich visual interpretations of Caldecott Award honoree Diaz, illustrator of such widely acclaimed children’s books as “Smokey Night” and “Wilma Unlimited.”

Arlene Alda also takes an unusual approach to introducing the alphabet in her book, “ABC: What Do You See?” (Tricycle Press, 28 pages, $12.95). A former symphonic clarinetist and music teacher, Alda has spent much of the last 30 years taking photos, and it’s obvious she’s developed a finely tuned photographer’s eye. In this collection of 26 simple yet wonderfully framed images, Alda finds the letters of the alphabet hiding in everyday items. A tangled garden hose, for example, becomes the letter “R” and a sawhorse the letter “A.”

Alda revisited that technique in “1 2 3: What Do You See?” (Tricycle Press, 22 pages, $12.95), in which a banana peel becomes the No. 3 and a door handle the No. 5. The magic in both books goes beyond the numbers and letters to their unique perspectives and the sense of mystery they reveal.

Stephen T. Johnson made good use of the same technique in his award-winning 1995 book “Alphabet City,” in which he painted the same types of images Alda captured on film. Now, like Alda, he’s also taking on numbers in “City by Numbers” (Viking, 28 pages, $15.99).

In it, Johnson finds numbers in 21 everyday settings in New York City. But as talented as Johnson is as an observer, he’s far more gifted as an artist; so much so, it’s almost impossible not to mistake several of the paintings in this collection for photographs.

In fact, both Johnson and Alda display such skill as artists and observers, their books serve more as primers into the opening of one’s imagination than they do as introductions to the building blocks of reading or math, making them suitable to creative thinkers of all ages.

For those who prefer a more traditional approach for beginning readers, there’s Ian Penney’s “ABC” (Harry N. Abrams, 36 pages, $16.95) and Izhar Cohen’s “ABC Discovery” (Dial Books for Young Readers, 61 pages, $17.99). Both are bright, well-illustrated books that follow the time-worn template of introducing a letter with a drawing and a word or two that starts with that letter (i.e. “U is for umbrella”).

But “ABC Discovery” works on two levels because Cohen has included in each of his illustrations hidden objects and letters that will keep creative--and patient--puzzle-solvers busy for hours.