Review by Booklist Review
Tired of being relegated to the end of the alphabet, Z recruits complacent Y (who didn't even mind being called both a consonant and a vowel) to join her as she scoots around to the front and then proceeds to glide grandly past all the other letters. The trip is far from uneventful: rotund D blocks the way until bought off with doughnuts (a baker's dozen readers unfamiliar with the term can count them in the picture), egotistic E tries to trip them up (as does Q later on), and other letters likewise make trouble. Perry uses loud colors, along with lots of polka-dots and streaks, to give the illustrations a psychedelic, Peter Max vibe, and outfits all the letters with pop-eyed faces. All are easily recognizable, except, oddly, for the narcissistic I, who, despite being referred to in the uppercase, is illustrated as a lowercase i. Finally passing X, who is (wait for it) always cross, the two no sooner finish their alphabetical ramble than Z wants to start over. So will young abecedarians.--Peters, John Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Fed up with being last in the alphabet, the letter Z seeks a promotion. Z recruits Y to make the move with her, but the other letters impede their progress: "You can't get past me. I'm the most important letter in the alphabet. And quite flexible, too," E says. Lamb packs in letter-related gags: "X is always cross," Z tells Y, and "LMNOP stuck together as if they formed their own word." Working in a bubbly art style, Perry renders the letters with googly eyes and in a candy-colored palette: Z herself is yellow with wavy hair and big, pink and orange polka dots. Some letters' personalities come across as underdeveloped, however, and Z never manages to entirely disrupt the flow of the alphabet as the title suggests. Nevertheless, readers should appreciate the pun-heavy banter as Y and Z learn that each letter has its own valuable place in the alphabet. Ages 3-6. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
With so many alphabet books bouncing around, it's no wonder that letter Z is tired of being in last place. For a change, she wants to go first.Being at the end is sooo boring, so Z and Y together decide to challenge the other letters for position--but they run into a number of letters blocking their way. E stretches into a fence. D blocks their path with his big belly (from eating too many doughnuts). F and G let them pass with a warning that H might be grumpy. LMNOP stick together like a brick wall. While the storyline plays itself out with understated humor, the bright, mixed-media illustrations shape each letter like a Saturday-morning-cartoon character, with googly eyes and (mostly) smiling faces. Each one has a personality trait, with vivid colors adding to the comic effect, and some letters seem to contain related references in their design. For example, M looks rather like a dog, which may prompt caregivers to introduce the vocabulary word "mutt," but this is not consistent--why does the J have a head that looks like a duck? Will Z and Y make it to the beginning of the alphabet? Kids will no doubt find their quest a hoot and giggle. (Picture book. 4-6)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
