Alphabeep!: A Zipping, Zooming ABC

Publishers Weekly

From Ambulance to Zamboni, Alphabeep: A Zipping, Zooming ABC by Debora Pearson, illus. by Edward Miller, zips, zooms, beeps and vrooooms its way through the streets of a noisy town, introducing an alphabet of vehicles (Q is for quarry excavator). Bouncy read-aloud text that brim with metaphors (the quarry excavator "gnaws apart a tower of rubble, dropping rocks like crumbs") plus bold graphic illustrations bring the busy cars, trucks and trains to life. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

PreS-K-This colorful picture book is a vehicle lover's dream-a whole alphabet of automobiles, trucks, machinery, and road signs. From "Ambulance" to "Zamboni," each page has a lower- and uppercase letter displayed, plus a car, etc., to match, and a description and illustration that emphasize the spotlighted letter. The lively text frequently includes onomatopoeic words. For example, a dump truck "thunders by with its load, stops and tips it on the ground. Clatter, crash, ka-Boom!" The book is stunningly illustrated in a deceptively simple stylized manner. Featuring bright primary colors, the pages are packed with people and vehicles in action. The endpapers present the lower- and uppercase alphabet plus all the familiar road signs. The cover flap directs children to the illustrator's Web site for related activities, including a truck cutout, road sign stickers, bookplates, and bookmarks that can be downloaded. A real winner.-Judith Constantinides, formerly at East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library, LA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Pearson takes fledgling readers out for a spin with this alphabet of trucks and traffic signs. Miller illustrates them all, Ambulance to Zamboni, with clean-lined, brightly colored roadscapes well stocked with angular vehicles-themselves stocked with a diverse cast of smiling drivers and passengers. With verbal imagery as bright as the art-"Tt is for Tow Truck. It goes fishing for cars with its giant hook, reeling them up and dragging them off"-plus ranked lines of common signs on the endpapers and several keepsakes available for downloading on Miller's Web site, this is one ride on which children aren't going to whine, "Are we there yet?" (Picture book. 4-6)