Z Was Zapped: A Play in Twenty-Six Acts Book

Although I do indeed and even academically manage to appreciate and somewhat enjoy Chris Van Allsburg's The Z Was Zapped, I also find it more than a trifle (if not even majorly) confusing and potentially distracting that the letters are not on the same pages as the words describing them (and I probably would have found this even more of a probable issue as a child). I keep having to flip back and forth, which does become a bit of a tedium, and actually (at least for me) ends up being both frustrating and very much annoying. And while author/illustrator Chris Van Allburg's alliterative text definitely tickles my poetic fancy (and I actually find the general sense of morbidity, the fact that the alphabet letters are often in seeming danger, in seeming peril, rather amusing), the black and white illustrations of the letters and what happens or is done to them are really and truly not particularly to my taste (are actually not at all to my taste if I am to be brutally honest). Even with letters being kidnapped and zapped, the depictions of these occurrences seem mundane and monotonous, or perhaps more to the point, I myself tend to find the lack of colour somewhat frustratingly mundane and monotonous. However, this is often (if not usually) the case for me with Chris Van Allsburg's artwork (namely that while I always can appreciate his illustrations, I can also never truly love them). Still, The Z Was Zapped is to be recommended as an interesting and novel alphabet book for children (and their parents) who want, who might desire something a bit different from the general status quo, my own issues, my own not so glowing and pretty blah reaction to The Z Was Zapped notwithstanding (however, from a personal reading pleasure point of view, The Z Was Zapped is but a high two star book for me).