Animal Action ABC

An innovative alphabet book invites small children to imitate twenty-six different animals as they box, leap, and stretch their way from A to Z, and each spread features an animal and children in imitating poses.

Urging children to "Arch," "Balance" and "Charge" like familiar animals, Animal Action ABC by Karen Pandell is an imaginative and dynamic alphabet book. The large format pairs brilliant nature photographs (by Art Wolfe) with photo silhouettes (by Nancy Sheehan) of children mimicking the animals' movements. For example, as rhyming text exhorts readers to "Inflate like a frigatebird," a photo shows the bird puffing out its enormous red throat pouch; another photo shows a girl blowing up a red balloon. Detailed endnotes crown the work. Grandmother's Alphabet by Eve Shaw presents a gallery of talented and inspiring grandmothers: "Grandma is an Artist, she paints with colors bright/ Grandma is a Businesswoman who often works at night." Along with the rhyming verse, running text suggests other professions, too. For the letter "Q," for example, Grandma can be a quilter, quartet member or quality controller "...and so can
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The alphabet in this book functions more as a framework than it does a primer in letters. It pairs verbs--arch, balance, charge, drink--with an animal engaged in that activity and a poem describing it. Brightly clad children superimposed against a backdrop of wildlife photographs imitate the animal actions. The wildlife and child photography is visually stimulating in concert, but the (just barely) rhyming text rarely extends the images and more often lacks the alacrity needed for a harmonious collaboration. There's no ``L is for leopard'' here; the sleepy leopard may be found under N, for Nap. A short glossary of each animal's habitat and behavior may interest older readers who will not care about learning letters or simulating the actions. For a stronger illustration of the same concept, see Jean Marzollo and Jerry Pinkney's Pretend You're a Cat (1990), which stretches minds as well as bodies. (Picture book. 3-6) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 4^-6. This is not so much a vehicle for teaching the alphabet as it is an opportunity to help children learn action words and let them get the wiggles out by imitating animals. From Arch to Balance, 26 action words, each headed by a different letter of the alphabet, are introduced, each accompanied by a pleasant verse that links the word to an animal. For example, W for Wrestle ("Wrestle / like two tigers / Grappling with each other / But soon you'll stop / to stare at / And honor / one another.") is shown alongside a photo of tigers at play. A cutaway photo of a child or children mimicking the animal's action is presented with each letter-word-poem combination. The poetry is sometimes strained (and sometimes just too silly), and the layout, though spacious, looks too chopped up. But the idea is wonderful and carried through well enough to make the book a source of fun for children and inspiration for their teachers. Stephanie Zvirin