Embarking on an adventure at A is always a good idea which is why this story does just that. Two children, treasure map in hand, pet gazelle at their side, sneak past their father and out of their house into a world beneath the city, a world where pirates and monsters roam. Will they find the treasure and will they make it out alive?

The Dangerous Alphabet is a unique story of adventure, piracy, danger and heroism told in just twenty-six lines, if the alphabet can be relied on of course! It has been illustrated by Cris Grimby who spent a childhood playing in underground labyrinths and is not very good at spelling! Neil Gaiman can, thankfully, spell, he doesn’t much like being underground and hopes that he has cleared the alphabet of bugs with the story! Between them they have created a story that takes its reader on a journey though dark and dangerous places, chilling and yet captivating.

The textual content of the story has clearly been considered and is highly intelligent as well as being  funny and simple. Its appeal is vast, I found myself reading it over and again, finding new meaning each time. The rhyming couplets make it good for reading aloud and are a great introduction to a poetic device in storytelling.

Children will no doubt understand the book on an entirely different level to adults. It is certainly a story that can be read at any age and any number of times.  It is a book to be treasured, shared, given as a gift but perhaps not read at bedtime. I hope that many children (and possibly even a few adults) will go off on their own treasure hunts as a result, but I hope that more than that they will find hours of enjoyment puzzling over the text and investigating the illustration.

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2008-06-01