Animal Action ABC

Urging children to ""Arch,"" ""Balance"" and ""Charge"" like familiar animals, Animal Action ABC by Karen Pandell is an imaginative and dynamic alphabet book. The large format pairs brilliant nature photographs (by Art Wolfe) with photo silhouettes (by Nancy Sheehan) of children mimicking the animals' movements. For example, as rhyming text exhorts readers to ""Inflate like a frigatebird,"" a photo shows the bird puffing out its enormous red throat pouch; another photo shows a girl blowing up a red balloon. Detailed endnotes crown the work. Grandmother's Alphabet by Eve Shaw presents a gallery of talented and inspiring grandmothers: ""Grandma is an Artist, she paints with colors bright/ Grandma is a Businesswoman who often works at night."" Along with the rhyming verse, running text suggests other professions, too. For the letter ""Q,"" for example, Grandma can be a quilter, quartet member or quality controller ""...and so can I.""