A Is for Bee: An Alphabet Book in Translation
by Ellen Heck; illus. by the author
Primary    Levine Querido    40 pp.    g
3/22    978-1-64614-127-2    $17.99
e-book ed.  978-1-64614-153-1    $17.99

It would seem that alphabet picture books have covered everything from A to Z (including mixing things up à la Bingham and Zelinsky’s hilarious Z Is for Moose, rev. 3/12). Taking a more scholarly approach, Heck adds a new twist. For a familiar animal (a bee, for example), she has found names in different languages that begin with the same letter—but not the same initial letter as the English word. The letter A is for “Anu in Igbo, Ari in Turkish, Aamoo in Ojibwe, and Abelha in Portuguese,” all of which translate to bee in English. The pattern continues with “B is for monkey,” “H is for tiger,” and so on. Heck’s stunning scratchboard illustrations are enhanced with bold colors; the image fills the entire page, with the animal taking up most of the space and the words placed around the central figure. Sixty-eight languages are represented; European languages such as French and German are featured among less frequently included world languages such as Azerbaijani, Cherokee, and Wolof. An author’s note relates challenges inherent in this project and explains such terms as transliterated and Romanization. A big plus is the QR code that allows one to hear the words spoken by “native or fluent speakers.” Although it could become repetitive to read this book at one sitting, the variety of languages and animals will keep curious kids poring over individual pages and thinking about the differences and similarities among languages.

From the March/April 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.