An ABC Miscellany

September 1 – October 31, 2011

ABC books appeal to readers of all ages and are international in scope. While they are often intended for children and created as educational tools, some are aimed at adult audiences.  ABC books are often referred to as “alphabet books”, but that term is also used for books on the general topic of alphabets.  Among an assortment of books displaying a larger chunk of the alphabet, each of the 26 letters is given prominence, either highlighted individually or in a small group.  Can you find them all?

Commonly, ABC books present the alphabet in sequential order, but reverse and random order is also used.   One clever book is an oabecedarium, where each word in the alphabetic sequence starts with the letter O (“a” for oatcake, “b” for obelisk, “c” for ocelot…).  ABC books normally incorporate a target word and can be on any theme, such as animals, plants, the alphabet, illustrated verse, or politics. Notice the fascinating alphabetical atlas of medicinal plants and herbs done in dazzling chromolithographs.

ABC books are produced in a variety of formats and sizes, including pop-up or accordion books, miniatures, and card or board games. One book on view uses the latter to teach the English alphabet and Mandarin Chinese phonetic symbols.  A number of the books are produced as works of art by book artists: Daniel Clarke, Walter Hamady, Anna Hepler, Ron King, Russell Maret, Joanna Poehlmann, C.B. Sherlock, Barbara Tetenbaum, Hsiu-Man Tsao, and Claire Van Vliet.

Curated by Lyn Korenic and Jaime Healy-Plotkin.

Image from:  David Hockney.  Hockney’s Alphabet.  London: Faber and Faber for the AIDS Crisis Trust, c1991.