A B to Jay-Z
This next alphabet book is the first of the more niche alphabetica in our collection. This is the 100% Unofficial A B to Jay-Z written by Jessica Chiha and illustrated by Alex Lehours, published by Little Homie in 2017.
The cover is not great and definitely understated but once you open up the book, it’s all beautiful pastel pages featuring a variety of musical artists, almost all black artists from the world of hip hop with the notable exceptions of Marshall Mathers aka Eminem for M and Vanilla Ice for V.
Had to share at least one artist who is more from my era… “Hh is for MC Hammer and he loves hammer time.”
And I think “Qq is for Queen B” is a legit choice for what is often one of the “Creative Liberties” challenge letters, as is “Xx is for Xzibit”!
Overall, I’m not super fond of the typography, and in some ways the pastel colours seemed too subdued for the theme? But I love the artwork and, no surprise then, my favourite thing ends up being the end papers showing a mosaic of all the artists’ faces:
So not a standout overall, falls short a bit on the execution and production values, but a fun one to have in the collection nonetheless.
Next up, a travel souvenir alphabet book.
But until then, happy reading!
– Winston
This post is part of a series by our Alien-in-Chief: a tour of his collection of alphabet books, alphabetically by title. You can find them all under the tag ABCs, but if you’re looking for a place to start, we invite you to check out “Alphabetizing your ABCs” and “Starting with our ABCs” for an introduction to the collection. Happy reading!
