A, B, See! by Marilyn Janovitz ages 4-8 14 pages Chronicle Books May 2005 Lift-the-flap     While the lift-the-flap book A, B, See is recommended by the publisher for ages infant to three, this book most definitely has its place in the Preschool/Kindergarten classroom! The delightfully colorful pages introduce two letters at a time. Each upper-case letter transforms in three stages to an animal bearing its name. “A”, a perfectly formed letter, gets cloudy looking in its next box, bends to an animal shape in its third box (though still recognizable as an A) while the last box is covered by a flap with a big question mark on it. Lift the flap and a smiling toothy alligator is revealed. The layout of the letters emphasizes a left to right progression in eye tracking – a crucial pre-reading skill - while the guessing box promotes prediction by the child as well as letter/sound recognition. While a few of the animals are hard to predict, such as the Q becoming a Quail and the X becoming a Xiaosaurus, most are obvious. After a read-through with a parent or teacher, most preschool children should be comfortable reading through this book independently using letter clues to guess the hidden animals or visa versa. There is no story to this book, but it succeeds as an instructional tool without being dreary or preachy. This is a fun book that can be enjoyed by children up to and including five-year-olds.     web reviews   Barb Taylor/2005 for curled up with a good kid's book   For grown-up fiction, nonfiction and speculative fiction book reviews, visit our sister site Curled Up With a Good Book (www.curledup.com)