G Is for One Gzonk!: An Alpha-number-bet Book

From School Library Journal Kindergarten-Grade 3–This clever and sophisticated tribute to two icons of nonsensical rhyme, Dr. Seuss and Edward Lear, will surprise and amuse. From the Angry Ack who eats dirty clothes to the Zanderiffic Zibble Zook, who loves to read dictionaries, these fantastic creatures defy expectations. The Bloobytack, who collects objects on his sticky back, assures, I know what you're thinking, but that's not a BOOT, it's a SHOE so no B's here. In fact, none of the illustrations seem to have anything to do with their respective letters. Each spread features a letter, a corresponding Seuss-like creachling and its rhyme, and a comical cartoon portrait of the author. Several pages into the story, the Teedle-Weenie Woo, potatolike, brightly colored digits, join the fun. They insist on counting, be it 7 stars, 90 laps, or, in the case of the Uggle-Unk, 3 stripes in his underwear./Thank goodness, none are brown. Amid the laughs, children are ingeniously exposed to colors, numbers, and letters. The pen-and-ink illustrations of the creachlings are colored digitally, each in a different hue, in imitation of picture books of the '40s and '50s. The author and the Woos are painted in gouache with prismacolor-pencil details. The former–skinny and boyish with jeans, yellow T-shirt, sneakers, round glasses, and unruly red hair–imitates and interacts with his creations on every page, clearly having just as much fun as his readers. Handsomely designed, this wacky wonder will wow Woos of all ages.