Awesome Alphabet and Number Books

By Karen Cicero
Help your preschoolers learn their letters and numbers with these clever new picks form children's libraries and families.
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Once Upon an Alphabet

By Oliver Jeffers

In this gorgeous book from the illustrator of the best-seller The Day the Crayons Quit, each letter gets its own short story. Don't sweat how thick it is -- focus on a letter or two a day.

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TouchThinkLearn: Numbers

By Xavier Deneux

This tactile book ingeniously uses raised circles (as tires, grapes, tails, and a giraffe's spots, for instance) to help kids understand what the corresponding number means.

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Before Your Child Starts Reading...

Before your child starts to tackle lifelong reading skills, here's what you should know about books and language development.

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Countablock

By Christopher Franceschelli

If your kid knows his numbers but needs practice writing them, this is the book for you: Die-cut pages (of 1-10 and 20-100, by tens) allow your child to feel the shape of the numbers, a key to learning how to form them.

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R Is For Robot: A Noisy Alphabet

By Adam F. Watkins

From "jolt" to "clang," "hiss" to "Grrrr," loud sounds (and cute robots) help kids learn their letters. "The pages are bright, and the illustration conveys a lot of action," adds Joel Nichols, a children's librarian at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

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1 to 20, Animals Aplenty

By Katie Viggers

The fun illustrations in this book match silly rhymes (like five goats wearing coats and nine cats in matching hats). "Kids giggle when we read this at the library," says Ginny Collier, a children's librarian in Atlanta.

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Alphaprints 123

By Sarah Powell

Fingerprints help form the illustrations in this clever book that helps kids count to ten. Favorite spread: nine chirpy chicks.

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The Land of the Frontiebacks

By Cecil Brasher and Jim Medway

When an alphabet book starts with zebra, a skunk smells so nice, and an elephant is dainty, you know you're in for a zany read. Kid reviewers were so busy pointing out what was "wrong" with this book that they didn't even realize that they were learning their letters at the same time.

Copyright © 2014 Meredith Corporation.

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