My First ABC

Children's Literature - Kathleen Karr

From its stencil-cut cover through the fascinating art work selections made for each letter, this has got to be one of the more ambitious board books on the market. The lucky reader/user/viewer will be the adult sharing the book with a child—guessing which images were created by which artists. And the selection is quite catholic: A Japanese print by Hokusai mixes with an Indian drawing from the Mughal period and a fragment of a bestiary tapestry from the Renaissance; Egyptian motifs from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's famed collection share pride of place with Frank Stella's quite contemporary "X" (Haines City); not to mention the more expected Mary Cassatt and Winslow Homer. On the other hand, one could ignore the images' identities and see them through a toddler's eyes. It is amazing how quickly they become really pretty pictures of umbrellas, and queens (an amazingly attractive young Queen Victoria from Sully's 1838 portrait), not to mention apples and boats. Fortunately the book's back matter includes a work-by-work identification of each image used, because parent readers will want to know these answers. Reviewer: Kathleen Karr