ALPHAKAZOO

Garcia offers an animal-centric alphabet guide in this picture book.

Like many traditional children’s alphabet primers, this book takes each of the 26 letters one at a time and assigns them to a related animal and situation. But the author isn’t satisfied with a single usage for each letter—instead, his sentences are jam-packed with alliteration, which makes for some incredibly silly circumstances that young children may find amusing (“Sienna the Spider surfs with silly sharks in sombreros” describes the letter S). Each page also features extra elements in the background that begin with the featured letter, encouraging readers to find as many relevant objects as they can. There is no particular throughline from letter to letter and thus no overarching narrative; this debut picture book might instead lend itself best to being read selectively, rather than as a whole, especially for the youngest readers. Garcia sets himself apart by tackling the usually difficult letters with grace, introducing urchins for U, quokkas for Q, and xenops for X. Shch’s digital illustrations, as bright and playful as the text, tell their own self-contained stories on each page—for example, Ava the Alligator isn’t only avoiding aliens, as the text states; a closer look reveals that an axolotl is threatening her as well.

A fun, mildly innovative addition to a familiar learning model.