Review of "Obvious Letters: The Associative Alphabet Every Child Will Remember," by Gisela Hausmann

 Review of

Obvious Letters: The Associative Alphabet Every Child Will Remember, by Gisela Hausmann, ISBN 0966421701

Five out of five stars

Superior artwork expresses the letters

 There are countless books designed to teach children their ABCs. With such a large number, there is also a significant variety in their quality. Since the letters are the letters and fancy calligraphy is not possible with beginners, the differentiating factor of such books is the artwork in and surrounding the letters.

 In this book, the author takes a different approach and uses the basic shape of the letters to construct an object beginning with that letter. For example, the uppercase B is the right side of a butterfly, and the lowercase b is a backpack on an animal. There are two images for each letter where the shape changes with case but only one when it does not. For example, there is only one image for Z.

 The producers also showed some excellent sense in that they used a base minimal of coloration in their images. The beginner at learning the alphabet needs as few distractions as possible. This is one of the best books for teaching the alphabet and I would have used it when I was teaching my daughter the alphabet.

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