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Alphabet City
by Stephen Johnson
Alphabet City is a wordless tour of NYC, with each photo-realistic illustration depicting a different letter of the alphabet. Kids will delight in finding letters depicted in ordinary street objects like a Z in a fire escape or a P in a subway handrail.
Children will never look at 'ordinary' street objects the same again!
Johnson's stunning illustrations are so photo-realistic you'll have to continually remind yourself that they are paintings, not photographs! While most letters are immediately apparent in the illustration, other letters are less obvious. However, since the book is in abc order, the reader knows what to look for an the shape pops out fairly quickly.
And if you like this title, be sure to check out Johnson's City by Numbers.
Awards Won
* Caldecott
Winners--1996 Honor Book
* American Library Association Notable Children's Book Award
* New York Times Best Illustrated Book
* Horn Book Magazine Fanfare Award
* Parenting Magazine Reading Magic Award
See inside this book
Below are several sample pages from inside this book (not in sequential order):
Alphabet City Lesson/Activity Idea
Note: This idea also works for Johnson's other book, City by Numbers
ABC
Hunt for Young Children -- Learning Letters
For
younger children, it would be fun and educational to follow up a
reading of Alphabet City by pointing out alphabet shapes in objects in your
classroom. This may take some time to notice them so give yourself a
few
days to take note of them and don't expect to find examples as
clear cut as in Johnson's book. Your kids
will have fun with it anyway. Finding letters would probably be too
abstract for young
kids to do themselves, but if you point it out, they will have
fun discovering the lettter 'hidden' in the object. And maybe
some kids will identify some of the easier letter shapes.
For example, do your classrooms windows have a frame that could look
like a capital H? What about the student chairs? From the
side, do they look like a lower case H? Do you have a clock
in your classroom? It's probably round like an O. Does the
legs on any of your tables, chairs, etc, make
letter shapes? Some classrooms might naturally be better set
up for this activity, so
before launching into it with your class, be sure to take a look around
and see if you can find some letters ahead of time.
Where to now?
Now that you've seen this great book, what would you like to see now? Please note that as an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
