cover image The Steampunk Alphabet

The Steampunk Alphabet

Nathanael Iwata. Cameron + Company (PGW, dist.), $14.95 (56p) ISBN 978-1-937359-40-9

“A” is still for apple in Iwata’s first children’s book (which began life on Kickstarter), but his is “an apple-shaped music box made to revere/ the Capital’s founding of two hundred years.” A wood-and-brass apple appears opposite, complete with a keyhole and gears, and 25 alphabetical eccentricities follow, from a steam-powered candle with an light bulb to an mechanical fish outfitted with “surveillance devices.” Sidebars in a handwritten font share additional details about the history and workings of Iwata’s imagined mechanisms, which will pique imaginations young and old, along with his lovingly detailed images. Ages 2–6. (June)
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