Reviews: What's Inside: the Alphabet Book

This review first appeared in The New York Times Book review, June 16, 1985 [p.30].

   Pursuing his talent for detail, Mr. Kitamura lays out busy pages in his alphabet book, "What's Inside?'' The format is a graphic game of hide-and-seek. The rules are loose. A closed container, a garbage can for instance, is marked with the initials of its contents (''c d'' in this case). When the page is turned, the can disgorges a frantic ''cat and dog.'' An enormous suitcase marked ''g h'' and shaped like a guitar and a hippopotamus holds, by golly, a guitar-playing hippopotamus. And a coffin marked ''u v'' releases a vampire bat clutching an umbrella. An elephant accompanied by a fire engine simply materializes on a street marked ''e f,'' and the woodpecker plus xylophone are found behind a tree marked ''W X.'' These last two letters are the only capitals in the book. Here and there the alphabet gets upstaged by the bold drawings and lush washes.

   On the back cover is an illustration unrelated to what is inside: a crowded desk under a window faces a detailed outdoor scene. Each drawn object has been cleverly paired with its initial. A ''b'' lies like a bookmark in a book; an ''e'' sticks out of an envelope; outside, a kangaroo dozes with a ''k'' in its pouch. This amusing, logical way of linking letters to objects has room for expansion. Every illustrator worth his ink has an alphabet book in him. Mr. Kitamura may have two.

By Karla Kuskin; a poet and illustrator.

This review first appeared in the Scientific American, Dec 1985 v253 p42(1).

   A bunch of boxes stand against a brick wall. There is an open crate of strawberries, a big pineapple in a flat and a loose scatter of lemons and pears. Two almost-closed boxes, a hint of color showing from within, are labeled a and b. In the next picture we see the two boxes, lids now open. Red apples and yellow bananas appear, to no one's surprise. But what of that garbage can around the corner that bears the letters c and d? Again, a black paw at the edge of the lid offers a clue. These are easy, but by the time is interlocked chain of wildly romantic but careful imaginings reaches the snowy cemetery with its yellow tiger, the identify of the u and v so plainly marked on the coffin is less evident. Both whimsical and deductive, this funny book by a Japanese artist at work in London is a true original in its much traveled domain.

Philip Morrison; Phylis Morrison.
Review Grade: A