K IS FOR KITE

In her first picture book, Gatto offers cheerful, brilliantly colored paintings of children celebrating springtime and Easter pursuits. Her illustrations have a flattened perspective and a childlike simplicity well suited to an abecedary. The text is structured with each letter matched to one springtime item in traditional alphabet-book style, with a rhyming couplet further describing the item included at the top of the spread. The text sometimes struggles with logic, and some rhymes just don’t scan; some verses include God and his influence while others just celebrate springtime. Some illustrations do not have an exact picture-to-text correlation: For example, “C is for caterpillars,” yet there is only one caterpillar in the illustration. Parents and preschoolers will enjoy the joyous, fresh illustrations and the basic alphabet format, as long as they’re not too picky about details. (Religion/picture book. 2-5)