My son loves this book. We had it out for almost a month from the library and he still asks for it so we're checking it out again!

Handpainted cut paper artwork by Caldecott winner Suse Macdonald illustrates this stunning adaptation of Edward Lear's classic ABC rhyme.

A was once an apple pie,
Piedy
Widey
Tidy
Piedy
Nice insidey, APPLE PIE!

Suse MacDonald adapts Edward Lear's fun-to-say, alphabet rhyme in a picture book that combines the classic with the up-to-date. Bright, bold illustrations are created with handpainted cut paper. A Bear sniffs an Apple pie, a Cat and Dog are friends, an Eel and Fish share an ocean,
a Goose spills a bottle of Ink, while a Hen laughs and later a Mouse is observed by an Owl in a Nest!
A stunning book!

Notes
Edward Lear was born in Holloway, England, to Jeremiah (a stockbroker) and Ann Lear, tutored at home by his sister, and briefly attended the Royal Academy schools. Both an author and an illustrator, he earned his living as an artist from the age of 15, mainly by doing landscapes. What he is remembered for is his nonsense books, especially his popularization of the limerick. Along with Lewis Carroll, he is considered to be the founder of nonsense poetry.
In addition to his limericks, he created longer nonsense poems. The best---and best known---is The Jumblies, in which the title characters go to sea in a sieve; it is a brilliant, profound, silly, and sad expression of the need to leave the security of the known world and experience the wonder and danger of the unknown. His other most notable work is The Owl and the Pussy Cat, a less complex poem whose title characters also go to sea. Lear produced humorous alphabets and botany books as well.
His wordplay, involving puns, neologisms, portmanteau words, and anticlimax, retains its vitality today and has influenced such contemporary writers of children's nonsense verse as Shel Silverstein, Ogden Nash, and Laura Richards.


Subject:
Children's poetry, American
English poetry

Fun illustrations by Suse Macdonald, and very fun rhyming verse by Edward Lear.

not a fan

rhymes

but hard to read aloud

otGenre: Picture books - Alphabet or counting
otAwards: No awards were given
otGrades: Pre 5- 2nd
otWhy it’s in this category: This is an alphabet picture book. Each page has a letter with a sentence using words that start with that letter.
otColor: the visual direction and pattern of the brush strokes used in the pictures shows the variety of the colors and shows the importance of the pictures illustrating the letters. Everything else is white, so that the child can focus on the letters and pictures.
otHow to use it: This would be a good tool to teach the alphabet.

Wonderful rhyming using pretend words! You could make up your own chant or tune to go along with each page in the book. The children love making up their own words for each letter. This is a good introduction or supplemental material for phonemic awareness.

Genre: Picture Book - Alphabet Book
Awards: None
Audience: PreK - 1st grade
A. This book goes through the alphabet and has picture examples for each letter. For example, for the letter G, there are pictures of geese on the page.
B. The illustrations in this book are very vibrant and colorful. The illustrator used color to make the book more engaging for a young audience to follow since there are so many pretty colors throughout the book.
C. I would use this book with a class of students to teach them the alphabet. The book also has rhyming words for each letter (ex. the letter D has "dolly, molly, polly" on the page), so I could also use this book to teach students about rhymes.
D. Where did the little mousey live? The little mousey lived in the housy.

A cute alphabet book, that has rhyming nonsense words.

This book was very good - it was a great way to teach the alphabet to little kids. The alphabet is taught in a fun way by incorporating all the things from each letter into each page. Example being: S was a skunky, dunky, chunky, skunky, stinky, stunky, little skunk! This incorporates rhyme in as well as alphabet learning. I will definitely be putting this on my bookshelf in my future classroom.

Funny poems using rhyming invented words. Had my almost 3 year old in giggles.

I found the rhymes annoying, personally. I know I'm not the target audience, but even for a kid's book, it seemed kind of condescending to anyone older than 4 years old...

I love the nonsense of Edward Lear's alphabet.