8: An Animal Alphabet by Elisha Cooper

This is a fun book about animals and letters! Who doesn't love animals and letters?

 I love Cooper's illustrations.  

For each letter, Cooper illustrates various animals that start with that letter. One animal on each page he draws eight times. So there is counting involved too. Hitting all the big 'uns! 

Bison and badgers and camels and chickens.

Dolphins and egrets.

Aren't these pictures cool? I could spend a lot of time on every page, looking at all the animals. But my kids are more interested in what is on the next page, so they move us along at a fast pace. 

Cooper's illustrations are occasionally bumpy, which interests me. Like that fox up there. he is rather bumpy isn't he? But look at that gazelle. So sleek! 

So clearly he uses bumpiness with discretion.

Narwhals are marvelous. 

Quail and panda

At the end of the book, there is a list of animal facts for each page. Which delights me. 

One Nighttime Sea by Deborah Lee Rose and Steve Jenkins

Have you heard of Steve Jenkins? Last summer I got a book out of the library and loved the illustrations, but when I was thinking about getting it out again to read it this time (hey, I get WAY too many library books out to read every one. I am just a very optimistic borrower. Oh sure I will read a mix of 32 adult and children's books between now and the due date! Really though, I boost the circulation statistics for the library, so I don't think the librarians mind. They say they don't, but they might just be polite...) I couldn't think what book it was. Then I saw another Steve Jenkin's book, The Beetle Book and looking it up on Amazon (I am a sucker for book reviews!) I saw The Animal Book which is the book I had been trying to remember. Then when I saw this book, also by Steve Jenkins, on the shelf at the school library, I had to give it a closer look. 

Phew. That was a complicated intro. Did you follow all that? Well you don't really need to. Pretty much, I got this book out of the library because I liked the illustrator. 

That was a much shorter introduction. (But it lacks interest.) 

Steve Jenkins uses cut paper to make his illustrations. I am not generally a fan of cut paper illustrations, but I didn't even notice that it was cut paper until looking at the close ups of pictures I took this afternoon. 

I love belugas! 

This book combines counting up to 10 and back down again,with facts about the sea during the night. 

Otters. So precious. Did you know they sleep holding hands? Could they be any more adorable?

Funky!

Sea lions. I am prejudiced against sea lions. They are weird and mean. This prejudice is not based in rational reasons, I just don't approve of them. 

They smooshed a turtle in the binding. How dare they? I like it when books turn sideways for a page or two. So interesting! 

But then I thought my intro was interesting, so I am not sure  you should rely on my opinion of interesting. 

Isn't this page fabulous? Why hello, nimble basket stars!

You can really see the cut paper illustrations in this nudibranch.

Firefly squid and the colors of the sea.

Not everything in the sea is pretty. 

The morning dawns when we get back to one! 

Pretty fun, right? I think I need to check out the other Steve Jenkins books. Poor Deborah Lee Rose. I didn't really mention her. This book is much more about the illustration. But the words complimented the pictures quite adeptly!

1 in One by Tasha Tudor

Daffodils and Tasha Tudor in the evening light. Happy sigh!

Somehow, I am not a talented enough photographer to make this seemingly fool-proof combination look as spectacular as it should have. Annoyed sigh. 

Tasha Tudor is not a slacker. Her title pages are as elaborate as her story pages. 

My book is from Mineola, TX apparently. I love buying books from Betterworldbooks. They are almost always ex-library books, so fit very cosily into our library book sale books and they come from all over America and Canada. It makes me feel very well traveled. 

(Heaven help us if we ever loose an actual, needs-to-be-returned library book. It looks like all the rest of them.) 

Sweet bird and roses!

Ducks and daffodils!

Fiddleheaded ferns and wee violets

I love her floral borders. Just like in A is for Annabelle, Tudor has made an exquisite book out of a fairly mundane subject matter. 

I don't think there is anything more charmingly springy and old fashioned than girls dancing in a ring with baskets of flowers and floral wreathes on their head.

A mouse! With a fiddle head fern fiddle! Teaching 12 little birds to sing! 

Squeak! I can hardly bear the charmingness. 

As a little girl, I was always sure that figuring out how to make fresh flower wreaths would open any and every door to me in life. It seemed terribly important. 

Despite a college degree, I am still clueless about fresh flower head wreaths. Higher education in America has failed yet again. 

I wish Tasha Tudor could color this for me. But I love it in black and white. 

Sibling or cousins loving each other while stargazing. I love the imaginary world Tasha Tudor inhabited. 

Ha! I love my siblings, but I am pretty sure my little brothers would never have sat still to let me cuddle them and point out constellations. Imagining I actually sat still long enough to learn constellations.

Must learn constellations.

Seriously, Tasha Tudor is teaching me all the life skills I lack. 

I wish I was the kind of person who could look at this picture and not think "Oh Jane, why did you have to get the paint on the floor?" 

Tasha Tudor had her priorities straight. Who cares about a little paint here and there if kids are being artistic?

(Me. I care. A little. Sorry.)

Oh geese. Somehow, geese always seem much more connected to fall than spring. I think they fly higher in the spring, hurrying to get to those nesting/molting places. In the fall, they are all curiosity and lackadaisical. 

Aren't you happier after all that? It is impossible for me to read a Tasha Tudor and not feel happier for it.