Owls Are Good at Keeping Secrets: An Unusual Alphabet by S. O'Leary and J. Grant

Aa  

Alligators think you'd like them if you got to know them. 

Bb  

Bears sometimes want their mothers to kiss it better. 

Cc

Chipmunks love to stay up past bedtime. 

If I had to choose a single word to describe Owls Are Good at Keeping Secrets: An Unusual Alphabet, it would be "unique", since unusual is already in the title (that's just cheating). Each page or spread contains a single letter, upper and lower case, and a sentence about an animal. They're ridiculous, which is what makes the book such a delight -- that and the illustrations, which are lovely and charming with a bright, white background. I photographed my favorite spread because it made me laugh:

You can probably click to enlarge the image but in case that doesn't work, it says:

Zz

Zebras would like to be first. Just once.

Ha! I love it. I wish I could run this one by my eldest granddaughter (I have two, now!) because I'm sure she'd get a kick out of it and I'd love to watch her face light up.

Recommended - A cute, funny, unique, delightful ABC book with charming, often humorous illustrations. I'm a big fan of the mildly muted but colorful palette on a white background. That must be an aesthetic I'm drawn to because I recall gushing over a few other books with the illustrations on plain white backgrounds. Some have a scene that includes sky and foreground but which is then given a cut-and-paste look on white. If I didn't happen to be a purist I'd say this is a great book from which to cut out pages for framing (but that would drive me nuts -- I like my books bound, not in pieces).

My thanks to Random House for the review copy.

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