THE BUTTERFLY ALPHABET

This photographic alphabet book, focusing on letters found in nature rather than in manufactured objects, invites comparison with Jerome Wexler's imaginative investigations of the tiny. Here, two lines of verse and a full-color photograph of a butterfly or moth lie opposite a full-page, magnified detail of its wing that contains the shape of a letter. Each letter is also represented calligraphically and in a highlighted word of the text. Some of these latter samples are more felicitous than others: W for wing is quite apt, while X for exquisite is less than lovely. At the end of the book, solidly factual general information about butterflies is followed by a parade of short bios of the lepidoptera in these pages, collected over 25 years and in 30 countries. The book, inspired by Sandved's poster of the same name, is a happy conjunction of elements: surprisingly informative and visually pleasing. (Nonfiction. 4+)