Infant's Insects

         Welcome to the April A to Z Blog Challenge!  My theme this year is Block Printed Alphabet Squared, an alphabet of alphabets illustrated with relief block prints.  Find the master list of participating blogs here, because you can’t tell the players without a scorecard.

        Today we begin with A Forest Insect Alphabet featuring wood block prints of 26 insects that live in southeast Texas, portrayed in woodcuts by Charles D. Jones.  I is represented by the Ips Bark Beetle, but unfortunately that’s actually one of my least favorites.  I’ve included two others to give you a better sense of these block prints: M for Monarch Butterfly, of course, and T for Tiger Beetle.  This book is interesting in a couple of regards.  For one thing, it isn’t entirely a celebration of insects.  It includes not only the monarch butterfly sorts of things that everybody loves, but also lots of pests, including even some invasive species.  The other quirky aspect of this alphabet is that the text for each letter is actually lyrics of a little song, and the book includes a CD of the Forest Insect Alphabet Song Cycle!

        But that’s not our only Insect Alphabet.  Here are a couple of images from another, this one done in completely different and rather more whimsical style with linoleum block prints by Melanie Wickham.  Unfortunately, I could find only a sampling of the illustrations from this little limited edition book, and I was not among them.  I’ve included J for Jiggers instead.  (Many of the oldest English alphabets counted I and J as variants of the same letter, so it doesn’t seem too bad a stretch.)  And for a letter that I particularly enjoy, M is Moths.  But although my access to Wickham’s insect alphabet is a little sparse, she has done two versions of complete animal alphabets, so I give you those as well.  I is Ibex in one and Iguana in the other.

        In addition to the two Insect alphabets, I also have two Infant alphabets for you.  I is, in fact, for Infant in The Infant’s Nursery Alphabet from 1853.  Plus I give you also U for Umbrella, because I like the young lady’s attitude.  By now you know these are hand-colored wood block prints.  There will be one more of the illustrations from this book when we reach the end of the alphabet.

        I stands for Inn with a very attractive little wood engraving in The Infant’s Illuminated ABC Primer Book from around 1848.  This book also includes a second alphabet which I’m not featuring because for many of the letters I can’t figure out whether the illustration actually begins with the letter or not!  However, you can see two of them in the little letter icons at H and Z.  Rather than a second letter from either of this book’s alphabets, however, today I’m giving you the pages that can serve as the moral for this post: Good little boys and girls love to read better than to be doing mischief!

        Riddle of the day: which letters have the best vision?

        So, what’s your favorite book to read instead of doing mischief?  (I know, I know, who can pick a favorite?  Just share any one of your top 15 or 20 favorite books!)

[Pictures: Ips Bark Beetles, Monarch Butterflies, Tiger Beetles, wood block prints by Charles D. 

Jones from A Forest Insect Alphabet, 2013);

Jiggers, Fireflies, 2 alphabets, linoleum block prints by Melanie Wickham from An Insect Alphabet, plus free-standing pieces (Images from ebay dibber42 and melaniewickham.co.uk);

Infant, Umbrella, hand-colored woodcuts from The Infant’s Nursery Alphabet, 1853 (Images from Toronto Public Libraries);

Inn, Good Boy, Good Girl, woodcuts by John L. Magee from The Infant’s Illuminated ABC Primer Book, c.1848 (Images from University of Washington).]