Dog's ABC, A Silly Story About the Alphabet

Title: Dog’s ABC, A Silly Story About the Alphabet
Author: Emma Dodd
Illustrator: Tucker Slingsby
Publisher: Dutton Children Books, 2002
Genre: Picture book/ ABC
Age Range: K-3

Summary: This is story about Dog as he goes through his day. He hits every letter in the alphabet starting his day by being hit with an “Apple” and barked because it hurt and scared a “Bird”, then a “Cat” chases the bird while “Dog then chases the cat. You get the idea. Throughout Dogs day he not only finds things that start with the alphabet but makes many fun sounds along his way like Bonk, Whew, Ribbit, Blub, Quack, etc. At the back of the book on one whole page it reviews all the alphabet letters and the things that start with them.

Review: I thought this was a good story using the alphabet. Instead of going through and saying A: apple. It creates a whole story while incorporating the alphabet in it. Then at the end I like how it reviews all the letters and the objects associated with that letter. The pictures were computer made is what it looks like, so all the colors are very bright and bold. The writing was typography, so it was fun reading it as well.

Teaching Ideas: This would obviously be a great backup reading to the alphabet. But what I really liked is all the fun sounds, so this book could also be used in a higher grade like 2nd to discuss onomatopoeias. You could let a child look at different pictures and let them make up there own sounds to put in. You can also have students create their own poem or story with onomatopoeias in it.