Alphabet City

I love abecedaria and this is beautiful one - and a Caldecott Honor Book to boot! The premise is simple and hardly original: to collect letters of the alphabet hidden within the urban landscape. The Zs of a fire escape, the G of a lamp-post's ornamentation, the N of a bridge's trusswork, the A of a sawhorse...

Stephen Johnson's paintings are lovely vignettes of the physical props to urban living: handrails, shadows, light fixtures, brickwork, pipes, windows, brackets, and flagstones. The paintings are realistic without being too photographic and their colour palette conjures urbanity as both grit and mystery. This book has no words - only capital letters.

For this picture book the medium of art appears to be different kinds of painting methods. Even though this book contained no story line consistent with its picture I absolutely loved this book. I found the artwork to be detailed, stunning and imaginative. I had originally flipped through the pages but it was not until I read the first page that I realized the pictures were not photographs but instead paintings. I was absolutely shocked and amazed at every turn of the page. With each picture I feel as though any students imagination would be broadened just a little more to use what they are learning in the classroom in the outside world. Overall I think the was a really good picture book with beautiful artwork.

A Caldecott honor book that takes you on a journey through the city. This is a wordless book and the illustrations speak by themselves.
It takes the reader to use the imagination and see where in their city they might be able to find a letter of the alphabet. One of my favorite ones are the letter E that is a traffic light and the letter y that is the light polls.

The Alphabet City book presents a wonderful architectural view of our letters in the alphabet. This book is age appropriate for the (k-1). There may be challenges in discerning particular letters but with guidance the task may be accomplished. No letters are written within the text.The photographs are very crisp with lavish color when possible. This is a terrific approach to review our old friend the alphabet. A follow up lesson would include a review of the book, and then have the children write the letter of random pages selected in the book.

This is a must include version of the alphabet, the gouache images are incredible. A great way to get young children (and older) to pay attention to their surroundings and see things differently.

While I can see the concept idea behind this ABC book, I do not think it works for the age group that needs it most. I could barely find half of them (and still don't agree with some on what they're supposed to be). I like that the author is trying to use examples from real life but I don't feel it translates well. I wouldn't use it in a story time or even as a recommended concept book. The illustrations are beautiful but not for an ABC book.

Summary: This is a picture book of alphabet letters that are seen in peoples everyday surroundings. Such as the shape of a New York fire escape looking like the letter b.

Personal effect: I enjoyed this book because make you look outside your normal point of view when looking at your normal surroundings, you can find more than what you would normally.

Extension: Students could go home and for homework their assignment would be to find ten objects that look like letters and write them down.

Also given random pictures of cities, homes, parks, streets, etc. students must find as many letters as possible.