Once Upon an Alphabet: Short Stories for All the Letters by Oliver Jeffers (Booktalk)

There has been a big secret which your parents and teachers have kept from you, but it just got leaked in this book. Did you know that each letter of the alphabet has a secret history, a secret tale? You thought the alphabet was boring: HA! Nope. But to keep you and all the other students of the world in line, they kept the secrets from you. I only have time to leak three of these stories.

Bob and Bernard are not buddies.

The letter B is all about battles and burning and Bernard and Bob. B is actually kind of an angry letter. Bernard and Bob cannot stand one another. They live on opposite sides of a bridge and have been battling each other for years. Bob burned the bridge and cannot get back!

H is sort of a scary, haunted letter. Helen lived in half a house. The other half of the house fell into the sea during a hurricane. Oh my gosh, I cannot bear to tell you what happened to Helen. It's too horrible.

O is full of wonder.

Owl and octopus

Out in the ocean there is an owl who lives on the back of an octopus. They search for a problem, solve it, and move on...

Once Upon an Alphabet: Short Stories for All the Letters by Oliver Jeffers. 2014: Philomel Books. Booktalk to K-3. Would make a great read-aloud or starting point for creative writing.

Book talk: A Zeal of Zebras (Virginia Readers' Choice, 2013-2014)

The English language has some craziness to it, especially when you’re talking about groups of animals as one unit.  For example, you can say “a pride of lions,” but not “a pride of pandas.” When you’re using “pride” as a collective noun, it only applies to lions. This is an alphabet book about those weird collective nouns.

If you have a group of parrots, you can say “a pandemonium of parrots” instead of “a group of parrots.” Isn’t that crazy? Pandemonium usually means chaos or disorder, but if you attach “of parrots” after it, it just means parrots in a group considered to be one unit. Say it with me: “a pandemonium of parrots.”

My next favorite collective noun is “a quiver of cobras.” These are king cobras in this picture here, and as many as 30 to 40 baby cobras are born in a nest made of vegetation gathered by their mother. Obviously, you should never, ever, ever step into a quiver of cobras. Big mistake.

My final favorite example is “a troubling of goldfish.” It should be a “troubling of tarantulas” or something, but it’s not.

Actually goldfish are quite social and like living with other fish. I learned from this book that goldfish have been known to interact with any fish belonging to their species: that’s quite social, actually. They like having friends.

A Zeal of Zebras will also tell you about an unkindness of ravens, a galaxy of starfish, and an embarrassment of pandas.

A Zeal of Zebras: An Alphabet of Collective Nouns by Woop Studios. Unpaged. 2011: Chronicle Books. Virginia Readers’ Choice (primary grades), 2013-2014. This book would also work well for intermediate grades.

A Zeal of Zebras: An Alphabet of Collective Nouns

Booktalk: A Isn't for Fox by Wendy Ullmer (Virginia Readers' Choice, 2011-2012)

For this booktalk, have post-it notes on the following pages in advance: the D/dragon page; the L/llamas page; the O/octopus page; the P/possums page;

 [Show the Letter D/dragon page]. Here we have the D page: D is for what? [wait for answer, then read the stanza]: “D isn’t for crow; it isn’t for snow. / D is for dragons from times long ago.” I hope he keeps his stinky breath away from that cat.

[Show the Letter L/ llamas page]. I see that this is the L page: can you tell me why? [wait for answer, then read the stanza]: “L isn’t for dramas; it isn’t for mamas / L is for llamas in fuzzy pajamas.”

[Show the Letter O/octopus page] I see that this is the O page: tell me why? [Wait for their answer, then read the stanza]: “O isn’t for docks; it isn’t for rocks / O is for octopus knitting four pairs socks.” Yeah, he needs a lot of socks.

[Show the P/possums page] Next we have the letter P: anyone know you call those animals? [Wait for answer, then read the stanza]: “P isn’t for goats; it isn’t for boats. / P is for possums in warm, furry coats.”

A Isn’t for Fox by Wendy Ullmer, illustrated by Laura Knorr. Unpaged. Sleeping Bear Press, 2007. Booktalk to primary grades. Virginia Readers’ Choice for 2011-2012.