Everybody loves Curious George! And there you have the appeal of this alphabet rendering of George's adventures.

Illustrating the capital and lower case letter (such as A is like and Alligator's mouth and a is like a cut apple) is intriguing, but not enough to justify doubling the already laborious alphabet. As the man with the yellow hat explains each letter, he uses little vingettes of George's experience ("You know what a cab is. I once took you for a ride in a cab, remember?") which will be familiar to Curious George fanatics, but fall flat for those only mildly acquainted with the monkey's back story. The story is further encumbered by interludes featuring basic spelling (using letters recently featured), a game of football that takes place after quarterback, and a snack of ten (instead of the man with the yellow hat's request of one) dozen donuts between T and U.

Finally, some of the outdated references may prove troublesome to parents. t is for tomahawk, tepee and tent for example. But for me, the last straw was the page I skipped which read X is for Xmas and the text, "Santa stands for Xmas. There is only one Santa so we only need one picture. George thought Xmas was exciting."

There are other delightful Curious George stories. Skip this one. We will not be checking it out from the library again.