The Story Of The Alphabet

Little i can't wait to meet his friends at school, but there's just one problem: he can't find his dot anywhere? Each letter offers a replacement—an acorn from Little a, a balloon from Little b, a clock from Little c—but nothing seems quite right. Adorable illustrations teach alphabet letters and sounds with a surprising and satisfying ending to Little i's search.

The first comprehensive intellectual history of alphabet studies. Inventing the Alphabet provides the first account of two-and-a-half millennia of scholarship on the alphabet. Drawing on decades of research, Johanna Drucker dives into sometimes obscure and esoteric references, dispelling myths and identifying a pantheon of little-known scholars who contributed to our modern understandings of the alphabet, one of the most important inventions in human history. Beginning with Biblical tales and accounts from antiquity, Drucker traces the transmission of ancient Greek thinking about the alphabet’s origin and debates about how Moses learned to read. The book moves through the centuries, finishing with contemporary concepts of the letters in alpha-numeric code used for global communication systems. Along the way, we learn about magical and angelic alphabets, antique inscriptions on coins and artifacts, and the comparative tables of scripts that continue through the development of modern fields of archaeology and paleography. This is the first book to chronicle the story of the intellectual history through which the alphabet has been “invented” as an object of scholarship.

Join Elmo, Oscar, and their Sesame Street friends as they splat, splash, crash, and dash their way through the alphabet! You don't need to be an avid reader, a performer or an expert with children to relax and enjoy new fun ways to engage with the little ones during story time. This brand new and unique approach to children's books allows anyone who is shy or slightly discouraged at the thought of the perfect reading aloud experience. My First Big Storybook has subtle prompts, questions and guides to make sure that story time and that precious bonding experience is magical. Examples: Elmo and his friends are hiding. Let's play peek-a-boo and pretend we're hiding, too! Let's count the number of stars in Elmo's window! Can you find a rectangle?

Discover the alphabet from a bird's-eye view! Geographer and designer duo Benedikt Gross and Joey Lee have taken the alphabet to new heights—literally! Using satellite imagery and computer technology, the pair has discovered "accidental letters" all over the world: in roads, rivers, buildings, lakes, and more. Take a journey around the Earth in 26 letters with this special book. “A delightful anytime book with hours of entertainment”—Booklist

While teaching upper- and lowercase letters to preschoolers, Ehlert introduces fruits and vegetables from around the world. A glossary at the end provides interesting facts about each food.

"Z is tired of always coming last! He wants to try something new. But when he convinces the rest of the letters to step out of line and change their order, nothing goes quite the way he planned"--Back cover.

Best Children's Books of the Year, Bank Street College Why was reading so hard? When Adam started kindergarten, the teacher wanted him to learn about letters. But "p" looked like "q," and "b" looked like "d." Adam would rather color or mold clay. In first grade, his teacher wanted him to put the letters into words so he could read. That was the beginning of the Alphabet War. "Was" looked like "saw," and "there" looked like "then." Almost everyone else in his class was learning to read, but Adam was fighting a war against letters. In second grade, he had to learn to spell, which was also impossible. Now he was so frustrated he got into trouble and had to go to the principal's office. At last, in third grade, he got the right kind of help. Slowly he began to do better. During fourth grade, he learned that he could excel in other things. That gave him the confidence to take chances with reading. One day he found himself reading a book all by himself!