Alphabet Soup Nr.2

Celestino Piatti's Animal ABC, 1965

What better way to learn the alphabet than looking at pictures of animals?

Enjoy this new hodgepodge of different styles and techniques.

And for the previous collection, click here. 

John Burningham's ABC, 1980

Andrew Zuckerman, Creature ABC

Sébastien G. Orsini, Dans le mystère des animaux sauvages

 

Mary Angel, An animated alphabet

Yusuke Yonezu

Jurg Klabes, ABC mit Tieren, 1958, via Curio Books

C.B. Falls, The Book of ABCs, 1923

Brian Wildsmith's ABC, 1962

Erica Harris

Gwenola Carrère, ABC des petites annonces

Françoise Seignobosc, The gay ABC, 1930, via Curio Books

Anushka Ravishankar and Christiane Pieper, Alphabets are Amazing Animals

Jean de la Fontinelle, Alphabet, 1940s, thanks to Words and Eggs

 Julie Flett, Owls see clearly at night, a Michif alphabet

 Lois Lenski, My own ABC book, thanks to Q is for Quilter

Bittersugar Print, letterpress alphabet

Brian Wildsmith, From A to Z Teaching Cards, 1974, thanks to Jill Casey

 Seymour Chwast, Still Another Alphabet Book, 1969

Alice and Martin Provensen, A Peaceable Kingdom: The Shaker Abecedarius, 1978

Anne Rockwell, Albert B. Cub and Zebra, 1977

Walter Crane, The Noah's Ark Alphabet, 1871-72

Fritz Eichenberg, Ape in a cape, 1953, thanks to The Art of Children's Picture Books

David Frampton, My Beastie Book of ABC, 2002, thanks to Black and White

Eileen Mayo, Nature's ABC, 1944

Jean de Brunhoff, ABC of Babar, 1936

Alfazoo

 Alfredo De Santis was born in 1941 in Rome, and while as an art student, fully immersed himself 
in the lively and exciting artistic and intellectual life of the city during the 1950s. 

In 1962 he moved to Milan,where learned to appreciate the graphic design works 

of GIancarlo Iliprandi, Pino Tovaglia and other exponents of that fervently modernist era.

After moving back to Rome, in 1964 he opened a graphic design studio and published a number of 

children's books with Emme Edizioni. The funny alphabetic bestiary Alfazoo came out in 1968.

Bologna finds - Iwona Chmielewska

For a lucky coincidence, as I was about to leave the Korean publishers booth 

at the Bologna Book Fair my friend Giovanni from libriliberi (the best children's

 bookstore in Firenze, not to miss when you're in town) pointed out to me Thinking ABC.

 Having immediately fallen in love with it, I was delighted to find out that I could

 actually buy it, since most books at the fair are not for sale, and I have found myself

 before begging in vain to obtain a copy of a precious new discovery.

Iwona Chmielewska created this unique alphabet book in which every word is illustrated 

in the shape of its initial letter. And for every letter of the alphabet there are ten

 different full page illustrations! As usual, I picked the ones representing animals, but

 scanned the whole double spread for you to enjoy. The artworks are charming, delicate,

 whimsical and witty, and the author's imagination seemingly boundless. Thinking ABC

 won a Golden Apple award at BIB, the Bratislava Biennal of Illustration, in 2007. 

Iwona is a writer, designer and illustrator from Poland, but apparently she is best known and

 loved in Korea, where Nonjang has published five of her very smart, illustration-packed volumes

 (one more, An Accident, is coming out next month). As I researched the web for more information,

 I could only find that another of her books, The blue stick, was recently published in Spanish

 by Grupo Océano. Will any other international publisher please take notice?