Now Read This: Alphabetabum

The standard alphabet book takes a turn for the nostalgic—and slightly creepy—in Vladimir Radunsky and Chris Raschka‘s Alphabetabum, new from the New York Review Children’s Collection. The benevolent ghost of Edward Gorey hovers over the book’s faux-weathered pages, on which vintage photos of children (from Radunsky’s vast collection of antique black-and-white photographs) are joined by playfully alliterative names and rhymes penned by Raschka. Among the questions posed by the playful tome: Are these children our great-great-great grandparents? We knew “Excellent Edwin Eugene” looked familiar!