A Visit From St. Alphabet

by Dave Morice

St. Alphabet slids down the bookcase, fills the pages, and rides off on his "A".

Genres: Picture Books, Poetry, Language

19 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes and basically, (author and illustrator) Dave Morice's 1980 (and republished in 2005) picture book A Visit from St. Alphabet is a replete with wordplay galore alphabet and writing themed reimagining (and pretty much the same regarding cadence and rhyming sequence) of Clement Clark Moore's famous 19th century poem A Visit from St. Nicholas (which of course starts with "Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse" while A Visit from St. Alphabet begins with "Twas the night before X, and all through the Y, not a letter was stirring, not even an I"). And while A Visit from St. Nicholas of course prominently features St. Nicholas (the patron saint of children and in my opinion also of Christmas gift giving), in A Visit from St. Alphabet Morice's St. Alphabet is more like the patron saint of penmanship and of the alphabet (although in David Morice's illustrations for A Visit from St. Alphabet St., which are fun and engagingly descriptive, as well as delightfully oozing with visual humour, St. Alphabet actually looks pretty similar to St. Nicholas except that he has letters all over his suit).

And with A Visit from St. Alphabet being (at least in my humble opinion) a marvellous, a magical both textually and visually punning frolic through the English alphabet, through the letters from A to Z (but randomly placed and thankfully not in order), as well as punctuation, grammar and syntax, all whimsically penned by Dave Morice and also (as already pointed out above) charmingly illustrated by him (and equally a nice homage to Clement Clark Moore), language-lovers of all ages (both young and old) should fall in love with A Visit from St. Alphabet. Fun, engaging (and also presenting language learning made fun), I warmly recommend A Visit from St. Alphabet and consider the combination of Morice's text and images solidly four stars and with especially the ending of "Happy Alphabet to all, and to all a good write" making me hugely smile with linguistic appreciation and enjoyment, but yes, and for me, like with all books featuring puns and wordplay, the constant barrage thereof that David Morice provides in A Visit from St. Alphabet, this does have the tendency to get a bit tedious, a wee bit dragging (and that on account of this, a five star rating would not really be in the proverbial cards so to speak for A Visit from St. Alphabet.

[Marcie · Rating 3 out of 5]

#163 Poem and Illustrations

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

An unusual rendition of The Night Before Christmas/A Visit from St. Nicholas. Not my favorite, but definitely memorable. My daughter likes finding the "jokes" in the illustrations.