The Peter Pan Alphabet – Learning Letters With Fun Adventures & ABC Rhymes: Learn Your ABC with the Magic of Neverland & Splash of Tinkerbell's Fairydust

by Oliver Herford

This carefully crafted book captures the magic of Neverland with its beautiful illustrations and rhymes. It will evoke imagination in your child, dreams of great adventures, fantastic lands, pirates and bravery. However the picture book is ingeniously created to make learning of the alphabet fun and easy with Peter Pan themed rhymes for each letter of the alphabet.

Genres: Poetry

40 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1907

About the author

Oliver Herford (1863–1935) was a British-born American writer, artist and illustrator who has been called "The American Oscar Wilde". His family immigrated to Chicago, Illinois when he was twelve, then moved on to Boston seven years later. After schooling back in England and in Ohio, he settled in New York City with his wife Margaret Regan, where he became the writer, illustrator, and poet.

As a frequent contributor to The Mentor, Life, and Ladies' Home Journal, he sometimes signed his artwork as "O Herford". In 1906 he wrote and illustrated the Little Book of Bores. He also wrote short poems like The Chimpanzee and The Hen, as well as writing and illustrating The Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten (1904) and Excuse It Please (1930). His sister Beatrice Herford was also a humorist.

Ethel Mumford and Addison Mizner wrote a small book The Cynic's Calendar of Revised Wisdom for 1903 as a Christmas present and added Herford's name as an author as a joke. The printer made up more copies to sell and to everyone's surprise it was an astounding success. When Herford found out about it he wanted 90% of the royalties. He was awarded an equal third.

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first discovered Oliver Herford when I read his The Rubáiyát of a Persian Kitten. I thought that was a cute little book, but I enjoyed his The Kitten's Garden of Verses just as much.

So when I saw his name as one of the contributors to The Stag Cook Book: A Man's Cook Book for Men I was already familiar with him, not like so many of the other 'stags' that I had to go hunting up on wiki. And when I decided to create a personal challenge of reading one book per nearly each man who offered a recipe, I selected the Peter Pan alphabet from a long list of Herford titles available at Gutenberg.

This little book was written to honor J. M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan. The author first has the alphabets themselves speak to Barrie, who was naturally still alive at the time this book was published (1907). The letters remind Barrie how he used to practice his writing on a slate, making the 'A' lame, the 'B' too fat, and the 'C' too curly.

Then we work our way from A to Z, with each letter having a short rhyme telling what it stands for and why. I had to look up the first reference, though.

So A is for Adams, Oh! fortunate A
Luck certainly seems to be coming your way.
In the Days of my Infancy, A I recall
Stood for Ant or for Apple or anything small.
Now A stands for Adams, Maude Adams, Hurray!
I always said A would be Famous some day.

Turned out that Maude Adams played Peter Pan on Broadway in 1905! The rest of the letters stood for characters in the book, or the Underground home where The Boys lived when not out fighting pirates, and so on.

I was wondering what Herford would use for X, but X-Ray worked fine, with a picture of Captain Hook inside the Crocodile's tummy (the only way to see him now).

But what about Z? I confess he had to cheat a bit more there, but who could blame him?
Z is the Zebra the Boys didn’t meet,
But without which no Alphabet’s really complete.

I thought this alphabet was very clever, and the author's illustrations for each letter were adorable. I do need to go back and re-read Peter Pan though, because I don't remember a Lion getting his tail cut off. Do you?

Oh, just for anyone else who is cursed blessed with a little too much curiosity like I am, here is the recipe Herford offered for the Stag Cookbook.
Fried Elderberry Blossoms
This sounds like a joke but it is a perfectly serious dish—I made its acquaintance at the table of a little inn in South Baden, on the shores of Lake Constance. First you must wait until the elderberry bushes are in full bloom. Then you gather a good sized bunch of them—and cut off each blossom just below the point where the little stems join the main stalk.
These you dip into a light egg batter such as is used to make apple fritters (lighter, perhaps), taking care to cover both the flower and as much of the little stalks as possible. They should be served like fritters as soon as made.

Yum!

[enchatedfire · Rating 2 out of 5]

could someone please explain the purpose of this ~thing~ to me?

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book I randomly tripped upon trying to slim down some shelves. I was intrigued to see how you could make an alphabet out of Peter Pan while now I know.

First of all I love the fact that the author chose to make a round robin for the author I believe at the very start from the letters in which he wrote the story. And if not then it may be a dedication to someone that he had in mind. Either way it was quite creative and kept to the pirate them of the story.

Secondly the first entry "A is for Adams" sets the stage if you will (no pun intended) for which version that this alphabet is intended to derive from. For those who have about as much knowledge as I did upon picking up this book Adams was Maude Adams a famous Broadway actress who not only played Peter Pan but made the character a hit while on the circuit. Since the play was being done in the States, changes were made to cater to the American audience, which will help you to understand why the American flag is included. Furthermore she also played in a small town named Marceline in Missouri where she would influence two little boys named Walt and Roy who would make their own version of Peter much later on down the road.

Anyway trivia aside, The Peter Pan Alphabet provides the reader with a small poem focusing on an element from the book/play thus C is for the crocodile, j and M are for Wendie's brothers and O is for Odd's Fish just to name a few example. The poems range from either two verses to a nice paragraph depending upon the entry itself while there are randomly capitalized letters in the verses and a few entries put in bold capitals the letter for the entry although not standardized in other entries.

The illustrations are basic grayscale forms while based upon the play characters thus Pan is female while it also seems that Michael is as well although I cannot truly vouch for it. And while the human characters are realistic and well-done others like the crocodile are weirdly mixtures that makes one wonder if it was a giant lizard blown up to play the part.

Since the book was written in 1907 it does include what we would nowadays call offensive terms for the native characters and the stereotypes such as where the native maiden wants Pan's scalp instead of his kiss. At least they are more well-dressed than some other depictions of them although I cannot say whether the outfit is accurate or not.

All in all it was funny, a decent read and one that was also quite informative as well as historical at least for me....

[Brock Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

This primer contains spoilers if you have not read the Pan books. It's cute and true to the source material. Read it free on Gutenberg Project.

[Cheyenne · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a cute little book containing Peter Pan themed rhymes for each letter of the alphabet. Being the fan of Peter Pan that I am, I simply could not resist.

[Jarni]

awesome!!!!!