The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z

In 2007, the well-known actor and popular author Steve Martin together with Roz Chast, a witty cartoonist who had long and fruitfully collaborated with The New Yorker, decided to combine their efforts and creative abilities and came up with a humorous illustrated tour of the English alphabet.

The Alphabet from A to Y With Bonus Letter Z! is now called one of the most inventive and brilliant alphabet books ever created for a reader learning English, whether an adult or a child. Instead of the sleep-inducing apples and zebras that are typical for books of this kind, Steve Martin released onto the pages amusing characters such as Ollie the owl who owes money on an oboe, Horatio the hare, and Josie from Jupiter.

The alliterative witty poems often use loose rhyme and a completely non-childlike vocabulary, which sometimes forces booksellers to place the book in sections intended for adult readers. The drawings by Roz Chast are filled with humorous details that are not always noticeable at first glance.

Despite the challenging language and additional layers of meaning, this is exactly the kind of mix of silliness and cleverness that children enjoy, as well as the many funny details that turn each picture into a playful puzzle.

Steve Martin, who turned to children’s literature at a very mature age and who became a father for the first time at sixty-seven, five years after the book was published, had already produced many literary works by that point. He is the author of novels, short stories, memoirs and scripts for several filmed plays and stage productions. Even so, most people know him as a remarkable actor and comedian.