THE LETTERS ARE LOST!

Ernst (Little Red Riding Hood, p. 1349, etc.) creates an alphabet book that does far more than provide practice in matching letters with initial sounds. A set of alphabet blocks has become scattered: The A is enjoying a ride in a toy airplane; B has fallen into the bathtub, etc. The warmly colored, deftly outlined illustrations often spill out of their frames; most contain several objects whose names also begin with the featured letter. The pictures are populated with little toy people (possible cousins of Richard Egielski's characters in Pam Conrad's The Tub People, 1989) and a host of other nursery toys, while the stars of Zinnia and Dot (1992) cameo as a pair of hen-shaped salt-and-pepper shakers. The only living things are a dog, a cat, a mouse, and a busy pair of hands belonging to the owner of all this happy chaos. By the end, the set of blocks has been reassembled, but the text concludes with an invitation to readers to attempt other alphabet-related adventures. Most young listeners will want to do exactly that: Ernst stimulates children to extend their discoveries about letters and sounds into ABC books of their own devising. Pedagogically invaluable and worth adding even to the most extensive collection of alphabet materials. (Picture book. 3-6)