Kim Bellefontaine’s ABC is a better tool for teaching toddlers about Canada than for teaching the alphabet. Young readers catch glimpses of some of our cities and tourist spots. They are introduced to ice fishing, kayaking, and dog sledding. They discover that lobster, wheat, and maple syrup are foods made in Canada. Anthropomorphized Canadian animals people the cheerful illustrations: bears, moose, beavers, and geese don toques and Mountie hats.

Like many ABC books however – and this one is not the worst offender – it forgets that to teach young children the alphabet, you need to establish a close link between an image and a sound. “P”for “Peggy’s Cove” is not very useful, as most children have not encountered the name before and are unlikely to again soon. Likewise, having a boat in the foreground of the illustration might mislead toddlers to associate “P” with“boat.” Children young enough to be learning the alphabet have narrow vocabularies and experience. Bellefontaine’s alphabet book (like Kevin Major’s Eh to Zed and Jo Bannatyne-Cugnet’s A Prairie Alphabet) seems geared to parents who are bored reading traditional ABC books.

Ann Blades’ West Coast alphabet, By the Sea (1985), is more successful. The object illustrating the letter is the most prominent feature on each page, and the characters and background are consistent so as not to divert attention.

Now, I’m as patriotic as the next person, but do we need more Canadian alphabet books? Bellefontaine’s limp text does nothing new or fun. In our eagerness to teach young citizens about their homeland, do we scupper their chances to become early readers?