A Pioneer Alphabet. (ABC Our Country). [Original title: A Pioneer ABC.] Mary Alice Downie. Illustrated by Mary Jane Gerber. Toronto, ON: Tundra Books, 2005/2009. 32 pp., pbk., $9.99. ISBN 978-0-88776-961-0. Subject Headings: English language-Alphabet-Juvenile literature. Frontier and pioneer life-Canada-Pictorial works-Juvenile literature. Grades 3-7 / Ages 8-12. Review by Suzanne Pierson. **/4

 The illustrations in A Pioneer Alphabet evoke a sense of life as it was lived in Eastern Canada by the United Empire Loyalists who fled to Canada after the American Revolution (late 1700s). The illustrator includes items beginning with each specific alphabet letter in the main picture and the border surrounding the picture on each page.


     The back page includes a list of items to look for on each page. The list goes beyond the obvious and provides a bit more of a challenge for students to extend their vocabulary. For example, Dd includes “daredevil”. The illustration shows a young boy hanging upside down from the limb of a tree, being a daredevil.


     The illustrations also clarify the meaning of some of the more archaic vocabulary:.

B is for bandalore. I can do “whirlies” with it. Abigail can only make it go up and down, and Anna can’t even do that.

     The picture shows the young boy playing with a yo-yo. In addition, at the back of the book is a short paragraph with additional information for each page.

B Bandalore is the old name for “yo-yo,” which was invented over two thousand years ago, possibly in Ancient Greece. Yo-yo’s have been made of terra-cotta, silver, gold, horn, and wood. In the past, adults liked to play with them too. In 1985, a yellow plastic yo-yo was taken up in the space shuttle Discovery, as part of an experiment with “Toys in Space.”

     The text by Mary Alice Downie and illustrations by Mary Jane Gerber work together to reveal the everyday life of a pioneer family during the changing seasons of a year.


     First published by Tundra Books as A Pioneer ABC in 2005, this edition was published in 2009 as A Pioneer Alphabet. If you don’t already own A Pioneer ABC, you may want to add this new edition to your library collection.

Recommended.

Suzanne Pierson is a retired teacher-librarian, currently instructing librarianship courses at Queen’s University in Kingston, ON.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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