West Coast Wild ABC

Written by Deborah Hodge

Illustrated by Karen Reczuch

Groundwood Books

978-1-773066219

26 pp.

Ages 0-3

May 2022

 

Concept books are valuable vehicles for teaching concepts like the alphabet. But most become dreary listings of themed objects, especially for the very young, that trudge through 26 letters without any heart or atmosphere.  Deborah Hodge and Karen Reczuch's West Coast Wild ABC does not belong with those humdrum tomes. This board book has substance in both the content of its words and art, being both relevant culturally, ecologically and geographically.

From West Coast Wild ABC by Deborah Hodge, illus. by Karen Reczuch

For children who live on the West Coast, West Coast Wild ABC will engage them with familiar words and images, taking them through natural landscapes of forests, shorelines and water. There are fish and eagles, sandpipers and whales. There are plants like huckleberries and kelp, weather of rain and sunshine, and geographical features like the Pacific Ocean and phenomena like tides.

From West Coast Wild ABC by Deborah Hodge, illus. by Karen Reczuch

And, with everything, there is activity. There is shimmering and clinging, roaring and stinging, swishing and drifting. Even with elements that are relatively static like plants, there is towering and ripening. Life is happening on the West Coast and Deborah Hodge has seen it and Karen Reczuch has illustrated it.

From West Coast Wild ABC by Deborah Hodge, illus. by Karen Reczuch

The collaboration between Deborah Hodge and Karen Reczuch has helped young readers across our country visit the Pacific coast in earlier books in the West Coast Wild series: West Coast Wild, West Coast Wild Babies, and West Coast Wild at Low Tide. As with the others, the landscape of the picture book is the West Coast but it goes beyond space and presents a strong STEM foundation in ecology. Living things and their relationships with their environment and each other are paramount, as is ensuring they remain healthy and flourishing, as evidenced by the life they display in West Coast Wild ABC. Deborah Hodge may use few words–only two or three for each letter except the concluding "z"–but she spotlights each letter appropriately for our youngest children. A noun and a verb is all it takes for each to represent the West Coast properly and teach the alphabet. Similarly, Karen Reczuch may have illustrated each alphabet letter's page with simplicity in mind of her audience but she gives us the detail and realism that takes us to those shores and into the water and forest. I didn't know what a velella velella was before West Coast Wild ABC but Karen Reczuch depicts the morphology of the sail jellyfish, as well as the quillback rockfish, cougar, xiphister and others, so well that it becomes recognizable, and, by giving each living thing context, from a nest or tidal, Karen Reczuch also gives teachers and parents the basis for STEM lessons.

If you live on the West Coast, then West Coast Wild ABC will be almost a guidebook for young children with a opportunity for learning the alphabet by making connections to home. And if you don't live on the Pacific side of our country, West Coast Wild ABC lets you visit vicariously and open discussions about new places and the similarities and differences that come with a rich diversity of environments.