Reviews for A helpful alphabet of friendly objects

The average rating for A helpful alphabet of friendly objects based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-11-30 00:00:00 Benjamin Andrews John Updike wrote everything, so naturally a few children's books made it into the mix. We own one, A Child's Calendar, which I can not recommend enough, but this one was new to me. This book was a collaboration between John Updike and his son, David, who is an English Lit teacher and a photographer, and I got the feeling that it was something Mr. Updike agreed to do with his adult child, in the last decade of his life, as his way of saying, "Son, it must have been a challenge, growing up with a father who filled novel after novel with the "p" word and the "c" word." "Oh, and, son? Sorry about all of those. . . parties." (Google John Updike. You'll see what I mean. Easy to feel a bit sympathetic toward the offspring.) This collection is sweet, rather than exceptional, and I'm relieved to report that, in A Helpful Alphabet of Friendly Objects, "c" is for "cat" and not for. . .

Review # 2 was written on 2010-06-12 00:00:00 Henry Rosenfeld Nice photos illustrate this book, which has a poem for each letter. I like that he generally bases the poems on everyday objects (cats, dogs, shoes & socks), although "knot" did seem like an odd choice for k. Too long for our story time (but perhaps all alphabet books are). The poems themselves were hit & miss for me: c(at) & l(amp) were just so-so, but I loved y(ou) and z(ero).