The entire book goes over the alphabet using very descriptive nouns. I would want to get my class to read this book while learning the alphabet. I would get my students to tell me what sound each letter makes. I would also get them to stop at each letter and tell me another noun that start with the certain letter we were on. I could also introduce nouns to the class. I would tell them this would be a person, place, or thing. It would be a very simple lesson about nouns so they did not get confused.

 

Intended Audience/Grade Level: Kindergarten.

Katrina Streza caught my attention with this cover. I love holiday art that resembles things you would have seen in the 50s, especially with the light blue and red combination. I also like Alphabet Books, which are great ways to teach little ones the ABCs. This one is very cute. Each letter is a stamp, which shows that they use the word "letters" in two ways: letters of the alphabet, and letters like children send Santa (this allowed me to teach my kids that some words have different meanings, an additional learning situation that was unexpected). The words for each letter are things (the author says "traditions") that Santa likes, such as "A is for angel" and "B is for bird."

Scientists reported Wednesday that they had taken a significant step toward altering the fundamental alphabet of life — creating an organism with an expanded artificial genetic code in its DNA.

 

The accomplishment might eventually lead to organisms that can make medicines or industrial products that cells with only the natural genetic code cannot.

 

The scientists behind the work at the Scripps Research Institute have already formed a company to try to use the technique to develop new antibiotics, vaccines and other products, though a lot more work needs to be done before this is practical.

 

The work also gives some support to the concept that life can exist elsewhere in the universe using genetics different from those on Earth.

 

“This is the first time that you have had a living cell manage an alien genetic alphabet,” said Steven A. Benner, a researcher in the field at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Fla., who was not involved in the new work.

 

But the research, published online by the journal Nature, is bound to raise safety concerns and questions about whether humans are playing God. The new paper could intensify calls for greater regulation of the budding field known as synthetic biology, which involves the creation of biological systems intended for specific purposes.

 

“The arrival of this unprecedented ‘alien’ life form could in time have far-reaching ethical, legal and regulatory implications,” Jim Thomas of the ETC Group, a Canadian advocacy organization, said in an email. “While synthetic biologists invent new ways to monkey with the fundamentals of life, governments haven’t even been able to cobble together the basics of oversight, assessment or regulation for this surging field.”

With creative drawing and snazzy rhymed sentences. Each letter has a unique word match to it. While some of the words are simple other are ones rarely used and nice to see them utilized to help kids learn the meanings. I really liked the art in Alphabet Anatomy. It was done by the author’s son which is a neat bonus I am sure for the partners and readers. Down side that letter X is a pain to rhyme darnit. I would have preferred to still have made the word associated with it a word beginning with an X, instead of Excited, even if I couldn’t rhyme with it. I thought it might confuse a child. Alphabet Anatomy is a very good children’s picture book with great visual and smart sentences that the kids can have fun and learn at the same time.

Letters from Santa by Katrina Streza
Illustrated very colorful children's book showing the alphabet and things
that can make a Christmas a special time for all.
H for holly to welcome friends to your house is my favorite.
and q for quilt that my grandmother sewed. The thing I don't like about this type of book is you have to read it in your cloud reader-via a browser and the program wants to store things on your pc, 50 mb and I don't care to do that.