IT BEGINS WITH AN A

A rhyming alphabet/guessing-game. On each page are four bright gouache paintings. One illustrates a capital letter; the others, each with its line of verse, give clues to the identity of an object beginning with that letter. Across the bottom, large gray capitals ask, ``What is it?'' No surprises here—``X'' (always the toughest) is an unremarkable ``X-ray''—but the ordinary objects, smiling multiethnic kids, profusion of animals, and cheerful, flat blocks of color make a pleasant, sure-to-be-successful experience both for small folks just learning letter-sound correspondences and early readers who need lots of visual and aural cues to aid decoding. The last two pages display the letters and answers to the 26 riddles, in words and pictures. More interactive—and therefore more fun—than the usual ``A is for apple'' alphabet. (Picture book. 3-7)