Books like Ape in a Cape: An Alphabet of Odd Animals
By Fritz Eichenberg
For the kid who's starting to notice letters everywhere, this turns the alphabet into a gallery of silly, rhyming animal pairs worth lingering over. Playful, wry, a little vintage, quietly funny.
A trio of friendly horned monsters wiggle through their own bodies from horns to toes, naming eyes, ears, nose, and more while breaking into a silly dance.
A little boy heads outdoors and imitates the walk of every animal he meets, trying out hops, waddles, and gallops before finally moving like himself.
A big, friendly bear wanders through the woods noticing colors all around him — inviting little ones to spot matching colors of their own on every page.
A narwhal accidentally pops his best friend's bubble with his tusk-tooth, then turns Jelly's disappointment into a joyful search for every kind of bubble the ocean has to offer.
An alphabet parade of animals acts out each letter with a matching verb — an aardvark admiring, beavers ballooning, cats cleaning — all the way to a zigzagging zebra.
All the letters of the alphabet race each other up a coconut tree, chanting chicka chicka boom boom, until so many pile on that the whole tree tumbles them down.
A little girl wonders whether she's small, so she asks the animals and things she meets on her journey — and discovers that size depends entirely on who's doing the looking.
A band of monkeys drums, hums, and dances through a bouncy rhyme, inviting little ones to find their own hands, fingers, and thumbs along the way.
A hungry creature works its way through a snack-filled alphabet, eating everything in sight from A to P before regret sets in — and a resolution to change follows.
A spunky mouse invites a curious bird inside for a look around, naming every household object they find — while the people of the house grow less and less thrilled about their visitors.
A parade of rhyming oddballs takes readers from near to far and here to there — a bumpy Wump, a singing Ying, a winking Yink who drinks pink ink — with no plot but plenty of silly counting and rhyming along the way.
