Although it borrows its form from a children's ABC, Lettered Creatures is a thoroughly grown-up pleasure, a light-hearted product of civilization like champagne, fireworks, or the Cole Ported songbook. A collaboration between two talented brothers - one a leading poet of his generation, the other a peerless draftsman - this alphabet book is the expression pf a singular family wit, one born in precise observation matched with intellectual playfulness. Each spread introduces us to an emblematic animal - an insatiable Anteater, an overachieving Beaver, a side-long searching Crab - captured in an eight-line poem and a delicate graphite drawing. The poems recall the cool, dry humor of Marianne Moore and Stephen Sondheim, the drawings the "fantastic" realism of John James Audobon, J.J. Grandville, and Sir John Tenniel of the Alice books. But comparisons are out of place here: Lettered Creatures is a nonpareil, an ark containing its own precious world of verbal and graphic invention.
Pages: 30
Size: 8.5 x .5 x 10.5
