Nonfiction Monday - ABCs Naturally

With all the things springing up in nature here in the midwest, I was reminded of a fabulous ABC book we have on our shelves for the young and old. ABCs Naturally, A Child's Guide To The Alphabet Through Nature by Lynne Smith Diebel and Jann Faust Kalscheur is a photo essay. The authors became alphabet hunters after a five year old showed his brother and mother an open calm shell looked like the letter B. Here's the premise for this book.

Each letter is photographed in nature and the 4 x 6 photo is on the right hand side of the page. The left hand side has a larger gray letter with a description of the photo typed in black on top. Here's the text for the letter B which accompanies a photo of a partial lily pad.

Do you see the lily pad

Floating quietly?

It doubles as a boat for bugs

And a bright green letter

B

There's much more to this alphabet book. After the 26 letters of the alphabet, there is a Facts and Folklore section which provides information about the object photographed for each letter. It might include how animals and people would use the nature object and it provides a bit of history for some objects. Next, the reader can learn about becoming an alphabet hunter and read about collecting your own alphabet. This could be a fun summer project for a family. This could be a great mentor text for your own classroom or school alphabet hunting. Older students could really conduct some interesting research for a Facts and Folklore page.

Nonfiction Monday is being held today at Shelf-Employed, think about stopping by.