Great Caesar's Ghost, where was I February 1st? That's the day Dutch published the digital images for the latest of his growing oeuvre of beyond-awesome children's books. This time it's a stunning alphabet book composed of street art, which he titled Persona Urbanae.
Dutch zeroed in on one of my greatest sources of kidlit annoyance, too: everything's either zoo or farm, settings which are all but irrelevant to an urban kid [And we live next to two zoos]. Of course, then he went and did something about it:
I wanted to create a book for a kid, like mine, who is growing up in a dirty-ass city and who already knows the names of all the animals in the zoo and in the Big Red Barn...[For example] every alphabet book uses a nest for the letter N. Juniper and I seem to be in agreement that nests are kind of irrelevant. I feel it is much more important for her to identify other things that start with the letter N, such as ninjas
Persona Urbanae is freakin' gorgeous, and after an instant, enthusiastic response, Dutch posted it to lulu.com, where, for only the cost of printing and shipping, you can order your own on-demand copy. I just did. You should, too. [Or get the bigger digital images from his site and print them out yourself instead.]
Sweet Juniper's Alphabet [sweet-juniper.com]
Buy a print copy of Sweet Juniper's Persona Urbanae at cost, $8.73+postage [lulu.com]
Yeah, I love my copy. I just wish they made it as a board book. I'm not ready to let Stella touch it yet.
No way. I've got the same photo of that pirate from a trip through Athens a couple of years back.
Love it. Bought 4 copies on February 2nd and I've only have the guts to give one away, since we've already lost one copy to the raveges of our 1.5 year old. Wonder if it will be available on lulu forever (or at least as long as lulu is around)?
I love my copy. Although my friend stole it. I think I need to order another!