Book Fair!

Last weekend I found myself wandering around a book fair on the streets of a small artsy town nearby.

The town was interesting... I used the term "bohemian" when describing it to my husband. He said no... this town was "redeveloped" and planned as a "bohemian" town, and therefore it was not. "You can't plan bohemian" he said.

I guess he has a point.

I did find some cool books though.

An illustrator/children's author I like, Dar Hosta, was there. You can see some of her stuff HERE I love her use of color. Plus I've always been partial to those metallic gold and silver pens, since about sixth grade when they were all the rage. :)

I also found some interesting ABC books... homeschoolers are always on the prowl for books that cover more than one subject... boy that sounds formal... "cover more than one subject" ... how can I reprhase? Books about lots of cool stuff?

Well, whatever. I picked up Marcie Aboff's "Guatemala ABCs" The author has a series of ABC books telling about different lands. I flipped open this one to see if they got the Catholic Culture correct- and they did. For example, "D is for Day of the Dead." And they are pretty accurate (but quite simple) in telling about it. "H is for Holy Week" too! It's not a Catholic book... they touch on some Mayan folk lore/mythology.. which is fine by me but I know any hint of folklore or mythology gives some people the vapors.

Did you know the Guatemalan National Bird is the QUETZAL? I do now. And now I have something other than "Queen" and "Quilt" to use for the letter Q when doing alphabet cards.

Which brings me to the second most important letter in an alphabet book.

X

I always liked the Richard Scarry ABC book because he didn't use XRAY for X. (you'll have to pick up his book if you want to know what he used. Hint: It's Aquatic). The Guatemala ABC book has Xelaju.

What's that?

Buy the book and find out! :)

I did say X was the second most important letter. The first, is quite obviously "C".

"C is for Coffee"


The books are put out by picturewindowbooks and also have ABC books for Australia, Canada (eh?), China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Israel,
Italy,
Japan, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, and the United States. I didn't check the other books so I can't speak for their content, but I plan to learn more about them. My youngest is past the learning ABC stage, but he read the Guatemala ABC book simply because it was interesting.

publisher web site here