Tuesday, October 12, 2010

L M N O Peas by Keith Baker

L M N O Peas by Keith Baker

Rating: 5 stars

I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but how about by its jacket flap?  Here's a snippet from Keith Baker's bio, found on the back flap:
"Keith Baker has ten letters in his name, all of which can be found in the alphabet.  If he could be any vegetable, he would be a pea--green, round, quick, smart, easy to draw, and always surrounded by friends... He's sometimes grumpea, sometimes sleepea, but usually happea, and he hopes that someday there will be peas everywhere on Earth."

"We're dancers--and drivers round town."
 That excerpt is an example of the cleverness that can be found in the pages of the book.  What a funny genius Keith Baker is!  It is clear that he had fun with this book, and our family has had a great time with it, too.  I'm not sure why we passed it up so many different times at the bookstore and the library; we really should have checked it out earlier.  (It was published earlier this year.) 

Many alphabet books tell too much a story, and you lose the actual letters and words that go with them.  Other books don't tell any story at all, so kids whose interest in "just" the alphabet will be, most likely, less than enthused to read them.  But this is a perfect balance: Baker introduces us to the peas, and tells them of all the vocations they can be.  Some of my favorite new vocabulary words for Lorelei include: investigator, officer, parachutist ('cause the GRAND-Dad is...ok, was...one!), unique, voter, volunteer. 

The story is great.  The pictures are SUPERB!  They are just fun--the peas are doing all sorts of things, illustrating the words.  As a bonus, there's a little ladybug on each page that the kids love to find, especially the first time we read through it.  (In fact, I had to wipe down the pages because we were eating pasta while we looked, so some marinara sauce from Ben's always-sticky fingers got on the pages when he excitedly pointed to the ladybug...but I cleaned them.  Promise!) 

This is a fantastic book--one that is tempting to buy...let's see if I can sit on my hands and resist the temptation.

1 comment:

  1. Sounds totally charming! I can't wait to check it out. I also wish I were clever enough to come up with a "pea" pun myself.

    ReplyDelete