Bea Reviews ABC Pasta: An Entertaining Alphabet by Juana Medina

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: February 7th, 2017
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | iTunes | Barnes & Noble
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Blurb from goodreads:

A is for angel hair acrobat
M is for Macaroni the Magician
and T is for tortellini trapeze artist.
It's an ABC circus that's good enough to eat!

My Thoughts:

I loved the idea of this book, using a familiar food to help young children start to learn the alphabet and at the same time expand their knowledge of foods. The execution, however, was just okay. Some of the sentences used to demonstrate the letters of the alphabet are a stretch and there are some where both the pasta and the rest of the example are unfamiliar items. There wasn't enough familiarity in the overall text to balance out the unfamiliar. That said, while the one and two year olds in my class were often confused, I liked that Medina stepped out of the tried and true and made the text more challenging. I do think that it would work better for 3 and 4 year olds and not with toddlers. Also, a pronunciation guide at the back would have been helpful for some of the pastas and cheeses that are mentioned.

The artwork is a highlight. Each page is detailed but not busy, and shows both the food item and other words beginning with the same first letter. The colors are not overly bright but are eye-catching and the illustrations are a simple line style. The food items are actually photographs and then the rest of the page is hand-drawn.

 

"ABC Pasta" is a good book, a wonderful concept, just could have been better.