Amazon Alphabet

K-Gr 2—A colorful introduction to the Amazon River watershed area. Many entries are generic—hummingbirds and toucans appear without specifying which species are illustrated. Some of the information seems a bit sketchy, e.g., the jaguar featured is a black one. It is known as the Black Panther and comprises only about six percent of the jaguar population. Simple cut-paper collages illustrate each animal, and a portion of a typed sheet of the featured alphabet letter, upper- and lowercase, is a part of each spread. However there is no real sense of the creatures' size or scale, which could be confusing for youngsters. Kathy Darling's Amazon ABC (Lothrop, 1996) and Martin and Tanis Jordan's Amazon Alphabet (Kingfisher, 1996) are similar, but better titles.—Frances E. Millhouser, formerly at Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA