E-Mergency! by Tom Lichtenheld & Ezra Fields-Meyer
unpgd. Chronicle Books LLC. October, 2011. 978-0-8118-7898-2. (Purchased.)
Librarians and teachers who choose to read this one aloud had better start at the front jacket flap, where the reader is asked, “What happens when the most important letter in the alpha bet gets a big owie?”
The letters H & A trot along the bottom of the flap foreshadowing in more ways then one the outcome. Teach/ review the concept of homophones on the end-pages as the cast of characters are introduced on one page and the cast on letter E’s leg is shown on the next. Don’t skip the title page where a swerving ambulance heads straight for the authors’ names. And! By all means, take your time flipping the pages as you read the story of E’s terrible accident because each page is packed, packed I tell ya with puns and visual jokes from D and C reading comics in the attic to the skeleton in a closet on the fourth floor to Q’s profession of love to U at the front door.
After E takes a tumble down the stairs, EMTs come to take her to the hospital and O is tapped to take her place. Now, you read aloud chops will be tested as A states with finality that it’s “ O instead of E. That’s it PORIOD.”
The art is zingy and lively and readers will want to reread it again and again. I promise that each time they do, they will find something new to delight. So, is this an alphabet book? Not like anything you’ve ever seen. Is it sure to delight the littlest of readers? Not quite. They may not get the jokes. Surely by second or third grades, the concepts will be set enough to appreciate, but it is sure to have appeal all the way up through a high school language arts class.
Highly recommended!