ON BEYOND ZEBRA!

By Theodor Geisel '25. New York: Random House, 1955. $2.50.

A number of years ago Kate Greenaway illustrated an alphabet book called A ApplePie. She was but one of the many who have helped to make learning our letters fun as well as profitable. But these books are now out-dated, as the alphabet has suddenly added nineteen new letters. The inventor of these new ones is, of course, our own Dr. Seuss.

This annual addition to the joys of Christmas threatens to affect our entire literary world. Well, almost.

As in the other alphabet books, each letter (in this case a brand new one) has its own illustration for the symbol. This gives Dr. Seuss an absolutely unbeatable opportunity to exhibit his own wonderful brand of creatures. They face you singly and en masse from each double-spread page. They are as unusual and fantastic as ever and are sheer delight to study.

These new letters of the alphabet that come after Z are described in the author's own indomitable style of verse which flows merrily on to match both the new letters and the new animals. Only once did I think that Dr. Seuss had managed to get himself so hopelessly involved that he was done for, but, as usual, he managed to extricate himself. The following are the last of these 8 lines, and 1 let you judge for yourself.

"So each Nutch in a Nitch has to watch that small Nitch Or Nutches who haven't got Nitches will snitch."

It will be some time before the new letters (which are all listed in the back, along with a complicated and un-named one) are included in our writing. If you want to be ahead of the game you had better get a copy of OnBeyond Zebra! You might even try going beyond "Hi!" and seeing where that gets you. The vistas opened by this thought have decided me to stick with A-Z. You, however, should make up your own mind.