A Was an Angler

From Publishers Weekly "A" stands for angler, "B" for Betty the cook, "C was a custard / In a glass dish, / With as much cinnamon / As you could wish"; so begins this alphabet book with an appealingly old-fashioned flavor. It features simple rhymes and pastel illustrations in watercolor, colored pencil and black ink in a style somewhat reminiscent of Kate Greenaway. Domanska ( Busy Monday Morning ; Under the Green Willow ) expands a child's horizons back a few generations to a time when "nosegays," "pates" and "shillings" were common parlance. But the small differences in usage will not overwhelm small readers. There's humor here, too, as in: "K was a kitten, / Who jumped at a cork, / And learned to eat mice / Without plate, knife or fork," and even a bit of history: "X was King Xerxes, / Who, if you don't know, / Reigned over Persia / A great while ago." Ages 4-up. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal PreSchool-Grade 2-- Domanska combines the rich rhythms of Mother Goose, the alphabet concept, and an old-fashioned style of illustration in a winsome picture book. Each letter has its own rhyme on the upper portion of the page and a picture on the lower. Letters of the alphabet, in orange with black outline, stand out from the rest of the four-line verse, and solid yellow borders on the outer edge nicely set off each page. The pictures are characterized by subdued colors and line work that is more effective in some places than in others. Particularly appealing are the angler (especially on the jacket, where the colors are brighter), fat Dick, Joe Jenkins, and the parrot; the endpapers are both romantic and elegant. True to traditional style, the pictures do not extend the rhymes in any way but rather represent them.