Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Charley Harper's Animal Alphabet
Illustrator: Charley Harper
Board Book
For ages 2 to 5
Pomegranate, 2015 ISBN: 978-0764972331
Charley Harper was an artist who created dozens of pictures of animals using his own unique style in which shapes and colors are combined in wonderfully creative ways. In this beautiful board book Charley Harper’s illustrations are paired with a rhyming text to give children an animal-filled journey from A to Z.
We begin with a spread where we find A, B and C. Here we see an angelfish swim across the page, and an armadillo mother nursing four little babies. There is a beaver gnawing on logs, and a bear walking in a wood. Then there is a red cardinal and a “Cat / With calico hair.”
On the I, J, K spread there are “So many / Insects,” and a Junco and a Jay, and then there are “Koalas and /Kingbirds,” which “Look our way.”
Placed on colorful backgrounds and clever settings, familiar animals, and some that might be new to readers, will delight us as we turn the pages.
