Dee and Apostrofee

September 1, 2021
How will there be peace when Apostrofee keeps eating letters in words and replacing them with himself? Dee, an anthropomorphic letter D with stick arms, googly eyes, expressive eyebrows, and a mouth (like all the letters of the alphabet in this book), thinks the best words start with her, like delish. So she's not amused when Apostrofee, similarly anthropomorphized but toothy--for chomping unneeded letters--moves in and makes the word d'lish. Many of the letters get upset about their kind being eaten, especially the O's (according to Apostrofee, they taste like "little air donuts," though they do give him gas). At this point, the narrative turns instructive, with an outright (if not especially well-organized) lesson in contractions interrupted by a single spread about ownership. When Apostrofee punctuates his refusal to play nice with the letters with a flurry of O-eating, it results in such a bad case of gas he floats away. The other letters bemoan his fate until Dee finds a solution. The book ends abruptly with a shared dinner of alphabet soup, the letters now suddenly accepting of Apostrofee's ways. Hale's letters are cute, and the book design makes it evident that each prefers words that start with themselves. While the text makes it clear how they are formed, though, the word contraction is never used, and many of the shortened words aren't actually used IRL: d'lighted, d'vour, d'plorable. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Just don't. (Informational picture book. 5-10)

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