Once Upon an Alphabet

My three year old grandson loved this. Loved the illustrations. He just adores all books.

This book is visually stunning - it's beautifully drawn, the stories are witty and the characters are brought together several times. I really think this is a fabulous birthday present from birth to around 8. It's the sort of book that you can read to any child, if they're little, they can look at the pictures, and you can start gently introducing them to the phonics sounds. It's difficult to "read" for younger children, only in the sense that it's hand-written, so for example, his style of writing: G, looks like an S or a Z. It's definitely a lovely book to curl up with your kids and read. If you are a fan of brilliant illustration then age is immaterial. My one quibble, the dust jacket is bright orange and stunning, but if it gets lost, the hardcover itself is quite dull. Perhaps the paperback will address that. Visually, it's a joyful, oooooo, sort of a gift - think parents will probably appreciate it more than the kids.

This is a great concept for an alphabet book. Rather than just give them 'A is for Apple' it tries to give little stories about for example an astronaut for 'a' and 'a cup in a cupboard' for 'c'.I enjoyed the first few stories but then the book got rather confused about what its purpose is. If it is to help familiarise your children with the alphabet then the stories need to be age appropriate. So a lot depends on what age child you are trying to teach the alphabet to. The stories are aimed at children of 6 or 7 I'd say. Surely they know their alphabet by then. My 4 year old, who is an avid reader, has an excellent vocabulary and superb imagination began to lose interest after a few stories. The idea of an 'enigma' for 'e' is quite advanced. And I really didn't enjoy the characters chosen for letter 'o' and in the second half of the book these characters recurred. So this is probably a case of an excellent idea but badly thought out execution.

Alphabet books are, by their nature, meant for very tiny tots, and therefore the stories must be pitched just right (the child can't read, of course, and barely understand English). The key to a good alphabet book therefore lies in simple stories to accompany the letters of the alphabet and lots of colours, which this book does not have.

I LOVE this book. I have even recommended it to my child's playgroup. It's cleverly written and links together the short stories for each of the letters. So much better than the A is for apple, B is for bear style ABC books. I can't recommend it highly enough. One of my favourite books to read to my son at bedtime. I'm always spotting something new that I hadn't noticed before on a previous read! Never fails to surprise or impress me with it's intelligence.

Fab book. Enjoy reading this with my 3 year old and baby. Cute stories and illustrations. Encourages a love for stories.

It was home by Friday 29 I bought it for my 6 years old grandson for his Christmas it has some drawings and the facts work in real life so the stories are short some are really funny.

Short (1 or 2 pages) stories for each letter of the alphabet, with some of them connecting between letters. Cleverly done and very well illustrated.