A Farmer’s Alphabet

Before she became a Caldecott medalist, Mary Azarian was a teacher in one of Vermont’s last one-room schoolhouses. In the late 1970s, the state board of education commissioned her to create “a farmer’s alphabet,” a series of bold red-and-black woodcut prints featuring the 26 letters, A to Z, and depicting scenes from Vermont life. Now gathered in book form, printed in two colors on beautiful paper, these striking woodcuts give us a child’s-eye view of rural New England – from Apple, Barn, and Cow to aX, Yawn, and Zinnia – a homey, large-as-life world that readers of every age will want to inhabit. No M for McDonalds in Azarian’s world: only Maple Sugar.

Praise for A Farmer’s Alphabet

No matter where children live – on a farm, in the suburbs or the city – they will love this handsome book.
Smithsonian Magazine

A beautiful gift; a treasure to own.
The Boston Globe

Each page is a frameable work of art.
—American Library Association Booklist

Azarian eschews the merely cute or quaint, creating a loving memorial to a way of life.
—School Library Journal

Mary Azarian grew up on a small farm in Virginia, where she had horses, rabbits and chickens. After graduating from Smith College, where she studied printmaking with Leonard Baskin, she married and moved to a farm in northern Vermont. There she taught for four years in one of the last one-room schoolhouses in the state. She has been a full-time printmaker since 1969. Her illustrated books include Kneeling Orion by the poet, Kate Barnes, The Tale of John Barleycorn, and A Farmer's Alphabet.