The wildlife A-B-C: a nature alphabet book

by Jan Thornhill

Governor General's Award finalist The Wildlife ABC is now available as a newly formatted paperback! Nature in all its splendor leaps off the pages of this magnificent early learning primer, which features exotic and familiar animals from around the world. From A is for Auk to Z is for Zoo, this alphabet book communicates simple information through colorful illustrations and rhyming text; every page will spark young readers' interest and imagination. At the end of the book, "Nature Notes" provide additional information on each of the featured animals and their habitats, encouraging children to spend more time with this rich read.

Genres: Picture Books, Science, Childrens, Animals

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

I was born in 1955 in Sudbury, but spent most of my childhood in southern Ontario where, encouraged by my artist mother and engineer/inventor father, I developed a life-long passion for both art and the natural world. I spent a lot of time exploring the fields, woods, ponds, and streams near where I lived, and was an avid collector of things I found. I brought home all kinds of treasures – skulls and fossils, bird feathers and empty nests, insects, snake skins, fallen leaves. Eventually I labeled everything and made a museum in the basement. I thought I’d get rich by charging a 5¢ entry fee…but my mum was the only one who paid!

After high school, I attended the Ontario College of Art where I had fun making experimental films and videos – not drawing and painting. For about ten years after that, I illustrated freelance for magazines and newspapers, and did odd jobs such as sewing thousands of beads and sequins on Dolly Parton’s dresses. Finally, in the late eighties, I switched to the much richer life of creating children’s books. From the beginning, the aim of these wildlife-based books has been to foster in young readers a love of art, nature and the environment.

I live in the Kawarthas in a house in the woods that my husband and I built. As well as making books, I grow organic vegetables, raise a few chickens each year, make bread from captured wild yeast, and wander around in the woods looking for wild mushrooms, slime molds, beetles and animal skulls. A lot of the things I find – skulls, snake skins, desiccated insects, a mummified bat & hummingbirds, etc. – have made their way into what I call my “museum-in-a-bag,” a collection of natural treasures I share with kids when I visit schools. I’m an obsessive observer of the world around me, so much so that I consider a day I haven’t learned something to be a day wasted.

Reviews

[C. (Don't blank click my reviews, comment please! · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jan Thornhill is a bundle of enthusiasm and talent. Her book of city nature has a hidden cat name I haven’t solved yet! I enjoy every phase of welcoming Manitoba’s seasonal and constant wildlife rurally. So engaging and successful is Jan at what she wants to impart, that I seize upon her books. Now I have a 2012 edition of a 1988 book for smaller kids, which I give five full stars for gorgeous artwork and a wonderful nature sampling from which I learned, myself: “The Wildlife ABC: A Nature Alphabet Book”.

Learning the alphabet vis-à-vis sweet, memorable rhymes, I could not think of better animals for every letter, as widely and as well-balanced across the spectrum of possibilities. I scarcely knew what “gannets” were: northern birds. These lovely aquatic birds who are white with orange heads, were paired on page one with “auks”, of whom I had not heard. No wonder: paragraphs at the back expand on the drawings’ contents and subject of every page. We learn that there are auks but that the “great auk” was sadly murdered into extinction, by seafarers and museum collectors in 1844. Thanks to the great auk, action to prevent extinction and endangerment were created; such as prohibiting hunting during a bird’s nesting season!

In this book, we meet important animals we might not know where we live, or in our time. We also smile over as familiar and simple tableaux, as a housefly before a fridge. The art is colourful in a soothing finish; with pretty, detailed, thematic borders. “Z” for zoo shows everyone in a portrait together, making a lovely conclusion to a book that can be an easy night-time lullaby, or a detailed featurette of 26 animals and insects. A lot of work went into every part of this book.

[Manybooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, informative, with a straightforward but generally much effective rhyming sequence, Jane Thornhill's The Wildlife ABC is a perfect introduction to both wildlife (ecosystems) and the twenty-six letters of the alphabet (perhaps not for the very very young, but the poetic little verses of The Wildlife ABC are still and nevertheless always simple and uncomplicated enough to generally be used with and for children just learning their letters, from about Kindergarten to grade two, I would say). And an added bonus are the detailed nature notes that Jane Thornhill has included at the back The Wildlife ABC, and while I do lament a bit that a list of suggestions for further reading and study, that a select bibliography has not been included, the supplemental notes for each of the twenty-six letter sections (one for each letter of the alphabet of course) are indeed a true treasure trove of additional wildlife themed information, and even with the absence of bibliographical source materials, this very much and appreciatively increases the potential teaching and learning values of The Wildlife ABC.

Now the accompanying illustrations (which also have been rendered by Jane Thornhill who acts as both author and illustrator for The Wildlife ABC) are bright and lively, with an intense and vibrantly joyful colour scheme (one that is sure to enchant children and keep their interest). And while a bit too cartoon-like and two dimensional for me to consider them personal favourites, the featured depictions do always provide a successful mirror of and to the twenty-six letter sections (which in fact do almost exclusively feature actual animals, actual wildlife), presenting a glowing and yes, mostly realistic pictorial display of the author's text, of Jane Thornhill's printed words. Highly recommended!

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each letter is represented by a two line rhyme about an animal, bird or insect and a lovely bordered painting. At the back of the book, the author has added more detailed information about the animals she's introduced.

[Taryn Dean]

I would let the students think of other animals that begin with the letters.

[SB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked this one a lot. Atypical examples for the letters and it rhymes! Win-win!

Recommend.

[Cutie Patootie · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love this book so much

jut like the wildlife, im a nature girl so yeah and look inside

these are telling me about animals i didnt even know

at first i was like NOOOOOOOOO

but it was so cool

[Marilyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great pictures!

[KaitandMaddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the illustrations.

[Christie-anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

So Canadian! I love that. The illustrations and their borders are beautiful. The rhyme scheme is pleasing. And the Nature Notes section at the back is so informative!

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's alright but I don't think it is for reading with kids; they can read it to themselves.