An Annoying ABC

An Annoying ABC
Written by Barbara Bottner, illustrated by Michael Emberley

My rating: ★★★★

ISBN: 978-0375867088
Publisher: Knopf
Date of publication: September 13, 2011
Age: 3 - 7 years
Genre: Educational 

Themes: verbs, alphabet, classmates, negative actions

This is not your typical alphabet book. It tells the story of a class where each of the students’ names start with a different letter in the alphabet. But they're also acting out and dealing with the frustrations of each other’s actions. For instance, “Petunia pestered Quentin. Quentin quarreled with Roland. Rolan rumbled, Stella stumbled, Todd tumbled…” and so on until you get to Zelda.

I loved this book because the verb vocabulary is rich and clever--an excellent learning opportunity for children. Also, it focuses on consequences to negative actions, (because the students are "annoying" each other, after all) but also on how to make things positive again. The pictures are good enough, but the alphabet really is the star. I would definitely recommend it.

Find it at your library or on Amazon