Arf! Beg! Catch!: Dogs from A to Z by Henry Horenstein

This delightful ABC book has made it into our library bag several times now.  We don't own a dog, but all three of my children love them. Horenstein's playful pictures of dogs in action not only gave us new words for each letter, expanding the kids' vocabulary, but we also got to see how many different types of dogs there are out there.

Arf! Beg! Catch! opened up all sorts of conversations about the different sizes, hair types, ears, teeth and abilities found in the world of dogs.

The Z Was Zapped by Chris Van Allsburg

My mom was a kindergarten teacher for years and she cleverly used this book as a reader's theater play, with each child holding up their assigned letter picture and reading the words on the back. Each black and white picture shows a letter in the process of some like-lettered verb. The K was kidnapped, the B was badly bitten, the N was nailed and nailed again.

I've encountered a lot of alphabet books that are bad attempts at being clever, but miss the mark with confusing images or overwhelming ideas. Van Allsburg's easy to understand pictures speak for themselves and encourage pre-reading. After one reading children will remember right away when they see the picture that the Z was zapped!