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From Apple Pies to Astronauts: A Chronology of Alphabet Books with Aphorisms, Amusements, and Anecdotes – Part EIGHT

Revisiting the curated display created for iSchool@UBC LIBR594 –Directed Study done in conjunction with UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections

Adapted from the exhibit and case labels written by Sarah Bagshaw & Laura Quintana. Exhibition poster = Jeff Porter Designs. All photographs from Sarah Bagshaw.

In February 2017 I mounted a display of alphabet books in the Rare Books and Special Collections library @ UBC. This was done with Laura for a directed study project under the supervision of Kathie Shoemaker and Chelsea Shriver. The display was opened in time for attendees of the Vancouver Children’s Literature Round Table spring conference to visit on their breaks (held in Irving K. Barber building where Rare Books is). We had so much fun researching the development of children’s literature, ABC books, picture book illustration, and looking at some incredibly old books as well as many new ones. I thought I could share some of the writing and images from this display in a multi-part series with YAACing members as a welcome distraction from our Covid-influenced lives.

Our journey continues with a side foray into alphabet books that are not for little ones to learn the alphabet – they are for big ones to be amused.

Alphabet Books for Young Adults & Adults

The didactic nature of alphabet books is clear, even with slight twists on the usual form. They are often for learning phonemes, letter symbols, and vocabulary. However, with the explosion of picture books since the 1950s, many types of alphabet books have been produced. The formula invites creators to play with it, both linguistically and artistically. Furthermore, this familiar form can be aimed at older children and adults.

By subverting the form and creating an “antialphabet” book, parents can enjoy reading it even more than the child. For example, Silverstein’s alphabet book is labelled “…for adults only”. It

Teens Issue - Alphabet - 33 subverts the moral instruction in alphabet books of previous centuries by encouraging bad behaviour in innocent children.

By adding dark content, or using it as a canvas for artistic expression, authors and illustrators are adding to the genre in unexpected ways, though rhyming, rhythm, and alliteration are still used. Gorey captured all of this in his wonderfully dark and gothic Gashlycrumb Tinies. Some of these books have illustrations that include many objects that start with the letter, but those objects might be strange and obscure. The connections between letter, text, and picture are frequently based on world knowledge or cultural context likely impossible for a small child to decipher.

Chaperon’s Eerie Dearies mixes the darkness of the gothic genre and children’s excuses for missing school to create an alphabet book clearly aimed at grown-ups.

Many of the alphabet books being produced today are artistic masterpieces. The familiarity of the alphabet book concept allows the older child or adult reader to be cast back into early childhood even though the concept may be disguised in a new “grown-up” form.

The Grown-Up Case contained the following items:

Arsenault, Isabelle. Alpha.

Somerville: Candlewick Press. 2015.

Chaperon, Rebecca Eerie

Dearies: 26 Ways to Miss School Vancouver: Simply Read Books

Gaiman, Neil The Dangerous

Alphabet Illustrated by Gris

Grimly New York: HarperCollins

Children’s Books 2008

Gorey, Edward Gashlycrumb Tinies or After the Outing New York: Harcourt Brace & Co 1991 (Originally published in 1963).

Pelletier, David. Graphic Alphabet New York: Orchard Books. 1996.

Pelletier won the Caldecott Medal Honor in 1997 for Graphic Alphabet

Messenger, Norman. An Artist’s Alphabet Somerville: Candlewick Press 2016

Silverstein, Shel. Uncle Shelby’s ABZ: A Primer for Tender Young Minds. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc. 1985. (Originally published in 1961).

To be continued in the next YAACING newsletter…

If you are interested in the full display text and accompanying bibliography, please e-mail Sarah directly: Sarah.Bagshaw@vpl.ca

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