Wallace Edwards
ISBN: 1553373863
Kids Can Press, Limited
2002
Wallace Edwards' Alphabeasts is an extraordinary ABC picture book sure to delight adults and children. The abecedary crackles with wit and strangeness, its animal portraits beautifully rendered in watercolour and coloured pencils. The creatures within its pages are both commonplace and exotic, seemingly at odds in their opulent rooms of a Victorian mansion on the verge of disrepair. Surreal yet accessible, the book depicts animals lounging in ornate rooms of brocade upholstery and peeling paint, many captured among floral arrangements and art objects.
This first picture book by Wallace Edwards isn't just a colourful menagerie filled with creatures commonplace and exotic. The history of the abecedarius is rooted in didactism. Learning the rudiments of language was an important endeavour; it was not supposed to entertain. Alphabeasts succeeds in reconciling book learning with fun. The rhyming couplets that accompany the pictures are tersely presented in a large, clean typeface. While they are eminently readable, the couplets in themselves might sound silly or even banal. The images belie that simplicity in a harmonious amalgamation of narrative and art. A cursory glance through the pages won't be rewarded with the subtleties of the images. Multiple layers of meanings can be inferred from the dream-like images, raising questions of how the animals come to inhabit the old house. What awesome bestiary is this? A pig seems to have fallen asleep in mid-celebration, still wearing a party hat and happily clutching a half-empty box of chocolates. "Y is for Yak, seeking a path," shows the yak, poor thing, has literally painted itself into a corner.
An appealing aspect of the book is the array of animals that Edwards chose to draw. There are familiar animals as well as more unusual entries such as a xenosaur, encouraging readers to find out more about them. The book demands repeated viewings, as we see each portrait as a whole, each subsequent reading filling in the details that the verbal narrative necessarily omits. Motifs of playing cards and florals bloom where you saw only clutter before. Each picture contains a mystery. Why does a frog, clutching a paintbrush, "never look back"? Is he escaping the drudgery of decorating fans? What of the mandrill who waits for a phone call? Then there is the tarantula who stops by for a spot of tea, with shards of china and spilt dregs suggesting the spider may be an uninvited guest.
Go To Page: 1 2
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Irene Tanner-Yuen's Children's Literature topic, please visit the Discussions page.