Alphabet Book for Adults

Categories: Staff Picks

Hiding between the covers of a children's book is a very funny collection of grown-up cartoons. Steve Martin and Roz Chast have teamed up to create a gem, The Alphabet from A to Y, With Bonus Letter Z! (2007). It really almost comes across as a parody of children's alphabet books.

For example, Q: "Quincy the kumquat queried the queen, Cleverly, quietly, without being seen." Or how about, "Amiable Amy, Alice, and Andie, Ate all the anchovy sandwiches handy." The pictures, in classic Roz Chast style, mix the mundane with the weirdly worrisome, putting alligators under coffee tables and eels enjoying eggs at the dinette.

Adults will enjoy this book much more than kids will. It is an alphabet book, yes, but some of the sophisticated humor will go right over their heads. And it might prompt some awkward explanations, while you are trying to catch your breath from laughing as you put it into simple words why it's funny that Tough Tommy wants to try on Tina's tutu. Or that the man on the "D" page is, well, um, "dizzy".

Steve Martin has had tremendous success as an actor, comedian, and author. His book, Shopgirl, was made into a movie (he also wrote the screenplay). His recently released autobiography, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life, will be the subject of an upcoming blog entry.

Roz Chast is the insightfully funny cartoonist whose drawings can be found in The New Yorker Magazine and in her collections, the latest one being a complete collection of her published work, Theories of Everything:Selected, Collected, and Health-Inspected Cartoons, 1978-2006 (2006).