ANIMAL ANTICS

This bright, bold alphabet concept book offers a circus tent of animal favorites dressed in a variety of hats and accessories below a series of agile acrobats contorting their bodies into the shapes of all 26 letters. Lobel uses deep hues in watercolors and white gouache to illustrate her menagerie of “adoring alligators,” “elated elephants,” “kooky koalas,” “romping rabbits,” “tender tigers,” “eXuberant Xenopus” or “zany zebras.” Her acrobats display an equal feeling of playfulness portraying clowns, pilgrims, Eastern European folk and even a likeness of the author herself. A final page of “Animal Answers” briefly gives a two to three sentence summary of the creature’s actual characteristics and traits. A charming and literary frolic through a carnival of letters, descriptive adjectives and critters. (Picture book. 3-5)