"A" is for crocodile

I had to chuckle when I read Cathy's post on ABCs this morning. We, too, have noticed there is something funky going on with toy manufacturers and publishing companies where the alphabet is concerned. I mean, what's wrong with the traditional "A" is for apple, "B" is for banana, "C" is for cat examples of letters that have served millions so well up to this point? Do we really need to be new and inventive where the alphabet is concerned? Learning the alphabet is fairly important in the grand scheme of things we should know in order to succeed as humans, no?

Henry has the Eeboo Alphabet Cards that are meant to be wall cards, but could be gigantic flashcards if you felt so inclined. Anyway, they are adorable and quite clever. Instead of the classic black letter in the middle of the card with one small picture off to the side, the letter is hidden in a lush outdoorsy scene. When hung in a row, this creates a sense of fluidity and continuity. Usually there is more than one object in the picture that starts with the given letter. It's all very cute and whimsical and holy Zeus I have to be a botanist to figure out what plant this is that starts with the letter Q. And great Gatsby I gotta go back to school to learn what this animal is because I can't figure it out. And what about the instrument the zebra is playing, clearly it is something that begins with the letter Z but I'll be damned if I know. Perhaps when I finish becoming a meteorologist I can confidently state this cloud is cirrus rather than cumulus. And yeah, there is no key card to help ridiculously stoopid parents like us. There is an opportunity to be deviant, though, purposefully misusing the cards to teach kids the wrong thing - such as "A" is for crocodile.

So, in the following months, we'll occasionally post pics of the various cards to see if we can't crack this enigmatic alphabet learning tool. With our collective brain power, we just might learn these darn ABCs.