W Is for Wapiti! An Alphabet Songbook

PreS-K—Christiane Duschesne and Paul Kunigis have created a collection of 24 short, original songs with each title either starting with or including a word with the featured letter of the alphabet, from A to Z. Some featured words are standard alphabet vocabulary, like "Boat" for B ("Itsy-Bitsy Tiny Boat") and "Elephant" ("Mister Elephant") for E. Others are less predictable, such as "I'm a Twisted Turtle with a Goofy Grin" for "G," "When My Nose Is Numb" for "N," and "J" is about a pigeon with four legs named "John." Casual listeners might not be able to guess which letter is associated with many of the songs. The collection includes a variety of musical styles such as jazz, folk, and more. The songs are performed by Karen Young in a pleasant mezzo soprano voice, and Glen Bowser's booming bass, accompanied by a chorus of children and a wide variety of instruments. Genevieve Côté's child-friendly watercolor cartoon illustrations outlined in crayon illustrate the songbook. Each page is nicely formatted with a large colored capital letter next to the title of the song. The songs' lyrics are only loosely connected with the alphabet, so this is probably not a good first introduction to letter sounds. For that purpose, you might consider 50 Fun Learning Songs (Twin Sisters Prods., 2006). These songs are best suited for those looking for music for letter-of-the-week activities.–Donna Cardon, Provo Library, UT