A B SEE

The chief distinction of this alphabet book is the variety of upper and lower case type styles (script included) in which each letter appears. The pictures, which have the clear, unsophisticated, traditional look that parents associate with their own first books, alternate between scattershot groupings (for S, a seal, scooter, sled, salad, snake, snowflake, scissors, etc.) and full-page depictions of boys and girls dress rehearsing roles that are just as traditional but less innocently so: Stobart carefully colors the doctor, ice skater and librarian black, but of the 26 occupations girls appear in only eight (ballerina, gardener, hairdresser, librarian, nurse, queen, teacher, and waitress) with the relatively low status ""gardener"" the only one that departs from women's assigned place. Boys get the remaining eighteen far more varied and assertive jobs, which range from astronaut, cowboy and doctor to violinist, xylophonist, yachtsman and zoo keeper.