Wednesday, November 12, 2008

An American ABC



Finished An American ABC by husband and wife illustrators Maud and Miska Petersham. This book won the Caldecott Honor Medal in 1942. In 1946 they won the Caldecott Medal for The Rooster Crows.

Set up in the same manner as "A is for Amy..." this book finds something about American heritage and history for each letter of the alphabet. For each entry there is a page of explanatory text and then a facing illustration page. While the illustrations are colorful and well drawn, they tend to emphasize racial stereotypes. I was curious to see what they would come up with for the letter X. Sadly, X is for Xmas. Need I say more.

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