I am writing to you concerning the publication of my alphabet book for children.  I understand you may have doubts about publishing An Alphabet Book of the Sixties based on its historical, cultural, and general adult quality.  I would like to show you there have been many popular alphabet books of the past to display similar characteristics.  The New England Primer, Jambo Means Hello, and A Caribou Alphabet demonstrate these precise qualities you may be concerned about.  As they are all renowned alphabet books, I hope their demonstration will encourage you to publish An Alphabet Book of the Sixties.
 The New England Primer, one of the most widely used schoolbooks of early America, is blunt in its portrayal of social and religious reality.  First used to introduce children to bad behavior and its consequences, The New England Primer contained a section dedicated to the alphabet.  To demonstrate the its rigid portrayal, let us examine a couple of letters:
- Y- Youth forward flips/ Death fooneft nips
- F-  The idle Fool/ Is whipped at school
- T-  Time cuts down all/ Both great and small
Furthermore, these letters have very adult pictures to correspond.  “Y” portrays a skeletal figure forcing an arrow into a small child.  “F” shows a larger-than-life schoolmaster holding a huge whip over the church and schoolhouse.   “T” may be the worst with its picture of Death himself, holding a sickle and an hour-glass.  These concepts are hardly child- proof, yet they served their purpose well and did no damage to the children taught.  An Alphabet Book of the Sixties can provide useful information for children as well, despite its cutting pictures and concepts.
 A Caribou Alphabet serves to demonstrate the cultural value in alphabet books.  An Alphabet Book of the Sixties focuses mainly on the popular culture and sub- culture of sixties.  A Caribou Alphabet also shows cultural value, with its portrayal of the life of a Caribou.  This culture does not exist in the minds of many children- they do not live in the North and know about the food, migration, and family of the Caribou.  These are things children who live in Canada may be familiar with, but not many children in America are.  Cultural education is important for children, and this is one of the main goals of An Alphabet Book of the Sixties.
 Jambo Means Hello portrays elements of cultural education, but also provides historical education for children.  This alphabet book uses Swahili words to talk about African tribal traditions and customs.  The book is also designed specifically for children of African ancestry, so they can learn of their native culture and history.  An Alphabet Book of the Sixties wants to provide a similar characteristic for American children: a cultural and historical reference for children who are not of the Sixties era, but are still part of America history.
 I hope my comparison of a few alphabet books throughout history will help you to seriously consider An Alphabet Book of the Sixties for publication.  I look forward to hearing from you.

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Blair Lent wrote in reference to picture books, “Take away the words and what do the pictures mean?  Take away the pictures and what do the words mean?”  In answering this question, we will see the words and pictures of picture books are highly interdependent.  You can present one without the other, but this would prove detrimental to the purpose and success of the picture book.  To demonstrate the interdependence in picture books of pictures and words, I will examine Inch by Inch, Rain Drop Splash, and The Snowy Day.
 Examining Rain Drop Splash and The Snowy Day without the words, and then going back for the meaning with them, we see how the pictures are dependent on the words to attain the book’s true meaning and defined plot progression, and for effective characterization.  Without the words in Rain Drop Splash, it is hard to tell whether or not it is even raining.  The main focuses of the pictures are the animals and people, and the environment in which they exist.  The pictures also seem to be showing still life characteristics; there is no apparent progression of any one animal or person.  However, when we read the words, we find the book is trying to portray a huge rainstorm, following raindrops all the way from a puddle to the ocean.  We learn through the words it is raining throughout the story, and the main focus is not the environment, but the progression of the rain through the environment.  Without the words, this progression is lost.
 In The Snowy Day, we see a different problem when the words are omitted.  The Snowy Day, through examination of the pictures appears to show a little boy playing and journeying in the snow.  When we read the words, we find this is true, although the pictures are more exciting and defined with the words.  Oftentimes the pictures by themselves are hard to decipher.  When the journey first starts, the boy looks as if he is standing in the snow with abnormally shaped colored blocks around him.  What are the blocks?  It is impossible to come to a concrete answer until we read the words and find out the blocks are street buildings.  The words serve to define the pictures.  Characterization is also important in this book, due to the simple pictures.  Towards the end, the boy is “pretending to be a mountain climber” and “feeling very sad” when his snowballs melt.  However, upon the first survey without the words, there was no telling what the boy was pretending or thinking based simply on the pictures.  The boy barely has a visible face, much less an expression.  The words gave the boy in the story emotion and a creative mind, characterizations which were lost with just the pictures.
 Through examining Inch by Inch with only the words, we can also see aspects that are lost without the pictures.  Without the pictures, a picture book loses its entertainment and educational identification value.  Inch by Inch follows a worm on his journey, where he measures the length of various animals’ bodies and limbs, with his own inch- long body.  He measures the hummingbird, flamingo, heron, and toucan, among others.  A simple story to read, Inch by Inch offers no description of the bright oranges and yellows of the toucan, or long legs of the flamingo.  The words depend on the pictures for this kind of description.  Without the pictures, this book loses its ability to educate children through animal identification.  Another aspect lost is entertainment value.  Since Inch by Inch is a simple story to read, as most picture books are, there is no entertainment when presented as just words.  It relies on the bright pictures to keep the attention of its audience.
 A picture book minus either pictures or words is just not effective.  Pictures and words within a picture book are reliant upon each other for characterization, educational value, entertainment, and preservation of the original meaning of the story.  Through examination of Inch by Inch, The Snowy Day, and Rain Drop Splash, we find this interdependence to be true.