This week’s Teachers' and Caregivers’ Gift Guide got me thinking – how do you stand out from the sea of bad mugs, cheap chocolate boxes, and ties/bath beads? Myself, I usually go for the practical – a gift card to the nearby coffee shop, a bottle of wine for those days when my child has driven the teacher to drink, that sort of thing. But I also know that teachers use, need, and love kids’ books, and often buy their own, so last year I gave a teacher a terrific book just right for the age of the kids.
Not feeling sure of what would make a good book for a teacher, though? For most teachers of younger kids, good alphabet books, interesting alphabet books are hard to find. If they are relevant to what they are teaching or the area they teach in, even better. And this year, Tundra has released a collection of stunning Canadian alphabet books in paperback that would fit the bill perfectly.
For city kids, A Big City Alphabet is filled with affectionate portrayals of Toronto rendered in bright primitive-style paintings, but most of the scenes could be from any big Canadian city. It’s not only a lovely look at urban life, but supports community studies for kindergarten teachers – a perfect match.
A Seaside Alphabet celebrates the east coast with beautiful paintings of tumbled rocks, weathered wood, and red shorelines. The ocean features in nearly every image, a constant backdrop to scenes of boating, beachcombing, and wildlife. The unique light of the Maritimes is well-captured, and the children playing at tea parties and pirate treasure hunting bring an extra dose of fun to the alphabet of moments described in alliteration.
Rural life on the plains is gorgeously rendered in A Prairie Alphabet, which presents a full abecedarium worth of working farms, agricultural fairs, livestock, and landscapes of wide, flat land and sky as far as the eye can see. It’s a wonderful way to let children see their world reflected on the page or to give them a window into a completely different way of life.
Ted Harrison’s artwork is at once steeped in northern native traditions and a bold, vibrant departure. His illustration of The Cremation of Sam McGee is to my mind the classic take on that most quintessentially northern of ballads, and the paintings in A Northern Alphabet are true to this style. Each is rendered in strong lines and pure colours, bringing animals, people, and the changeable northern sky together to show scenes of arctic life that he describes in sentences packed with alliteration. For anyone with a northern connection, this would make a stunning gift, while its strange beauty is not lost on those who have never seen the midnight sun.
As a series, along with A Mountain Alphabet and A Pioneer Alphabet, these books make for a fascinating look at the variety of lands and lives to be found across Canada, something that begs to be shared and discussed with a group of children learning about our country.
Are you giving books this year? What titles do you love?