The Story of A: The Alphabetization of America from The New England Primer to The Scarlet Letter. By Patricia Grain (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001. x plus 315 pp. $45).
This is a most unusual book: fascinating, original, informative, amusing ... not one's ordinary reading fare. Patricia Crain focuses on the evolution of representations of the letters of the alphabet in books designed for children just beginning to read. She treats printed renderings of the ...