This was a cool alphabet book but some things were iffy and I don't think it would be a good alphabet book for storytimes.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This is a really cool alphabet book with pictures of eyeballs of different animals and information about each. I really liked F for frogs.

Jerry Pallotta is the author of several Alphabet books. I never would have thought a book about eyeballs would be as interesting as this one was. There is a lot to like about this book. First thing I noticed were the amazing images. Many of them are just close ups of the eyes of the various animals, some are just the head and others are the whole animal. They were quite interesting to look at, especially after reading the text and then examining the eyes. I liked that the animals were both those we recognized, but also some that were new to us. One thing I thought was fun, is that each page had an idiom about eyes and what it actually means (ie A sight for sore eyes means someone or something you are happy to see or To turn a blind eye means to not care about something). In fact, we reread the book just looking and talking about them. Snuck in the book was a page with a simple explanation of how eyes work. The fact on each page gave a tidbit about the animal, usually about its eyes, but also other information. It might also include general facts about eyes or sight in humans. Depending on who you read this book to, you can choose to read all or just some of the information. When I read it with my youngest grandchild, we just read the A is for line and maybe the one fact. With my older two grandchildren, we read the whole thing, but the older one really enjoyed the idioms. I even learned a few things reading this one. I can see this book being used in schools when learning about the senses, animals, idioms, and more. I definitely recommend this one.

Coming up with an animal for each letter of the alphabet is a challenge, much less giving us an interesting assortment of animals. To then add on something to say about each creature's eyes? I can understand why some of these letters are a bit of a reach, tying them to the eye theme. It might have been better to just focus on interesting eye facts instead of the alphabet format.

This is not a breeze through the alphabet, but a serious look at the eyes of various animals. One thing that makes this book unique is that each page has an idiom about eyes and explains that idiom, even if it does not necessarily go with the animal represented.

The Eyeball Alphabet Book is a children's nonfiction book written by Jerry Pallotta and illustrated by Shennen Bersani. It is currently scheduled for release on May 11 2021. The eyes have it! Laugh as you learn by staring right into the eyes of familiar animals (A is for alligator eye) and not-so-familiar ones (Z is for zebu eye!). Readers of all ages will be entertained with every page turn. Language learning bonus: each page defines an idiom that includes the word "eye"!

The Eyeball Alphabet Book is a beautifully illustrated book about eyes. The artwork is extremely well done, to the point I had to look closer to make sure they were not photographs on occasion. I thought the pages were well formatted and that the text flowed nicely. The facts shared were very interesting, and I think other adults and children alike will find them engaging as well. However, no matter how good the information was,and how well it was written, I think the artwork was the real star of the show here. I took a few moments after reading the book the first time and just went back to spend more time studying and simply enjoying the skill and talent in the illustrations. I enjoyed the book and think most everyone that picks it up will agree.

Thanks to Netgalley and Charlesbridge for access to this arc.

This is certainly unique among the alphabet books I’ve read so far. Animals, yes lots of animals, but animal eyes! Each letter is illustrated with drawings of an animal whose name starts with it. Plus there are “eye” idioms to go along with each letter. This would be great for a budding scientist or just anyone interested in a wide variety of animals from bay scallops to indri and lobsters to pythons. There’s even an animal for “X” that I’d never heard of before. B

When I saw this book I expected a simple A is for Apple type book but with eyes instead of the normal things. When I opened this book I was surprised to see how informative, pretty, and fun it was. My kids had a blast with me reading it to them although we ran out of time in our first session and had to finish it later. A great book to page through to look at images, learn something new, or have fun with eyeball related idioms.

This book is trying to do too much, and it results in not being kid-friendly. The cover made me think it would feature jewel-toned fantasy creatures. Instead the art is kind of muted (colored pencil maybe?) featuring common and obscure real animals.

There is way too much text per page, both facts about the featured animal and an eye-themed idiom on every page. Plus a handful of random “bonus” pages about glasses, diagrams of how eye nerves work, etc, with just weird artwork. This book just can’t decide it’s target audience.

This alphabet book was way better than I anticipated--because it is way bigger than its category! This is a really great science resource bursting with optical knowledge, animal facts, and even a wide array of idioms! I learned so much, and can't wait to share it with customers!

A fun book all about different animals and the letter sounds that make up their names. Great pictures, although a few places the author stretches to find an animal that fits the letter (as is a difficulty for any themed alphabet book) This is a good book for kids who like animals, even the "gross" ones. Great for learning new vocabulary. Not a must-have for the library collection, but if you have the budget and space it would be a worthwhile purchase.

Jerry Pallotta takes readers on an A to Z tour of eyes, providing fun facts about a variety of animals, both those you will already know well and others you may not have heard of before. The facts that I found particularly interesting were:

* A giant squid has the honour of seeing with the world’s largest eyes; they’re the size of a basketball.
* Horses have oval-shaped pupils.
* Tarsier’s eyes are larger than its brain.

In addition, an explanation of how eyes work is accompanied by an illustration with labels for the different parts of your eyes, including the retina, cornea and lens. Each page also explains what different eye idioms mean, from “a sight for sore eyes” to “without batting an eye”.

"Another pair of eyes means help from someone else."

I never would have thought a book about eyes would be so beautiful. Shennen Bersani’s illustrations truly are eye-catching. They’re so realistic that if I didn’t know otherwise I would have told you that some of the images in this book were photos.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Charlesbridge for the opportunity to read this book.

Every classroom should get this book!! The pictures are wonderful and bold. Each letter of the alphabet is shown by eyes of animals. The pictures are so real that it makes you excited to learn. I think that this would be wonderful for an at home library as well. I can't get over how wonderfully colorful the book is.

A fasinating animal fact book, told with graphic detailed pictures of the eyes of the animal in question. i thought this was such a clever idea, and really grabs attention.

What a fun and educational book! I'm in love with this alphabet book that provides gorgeous close-up photos of all kinds of creatures' eyes, along with facts to accompany every one. Another reviewer complained about too much information for kids in this picture book but if you're reading it to tiny kids you can skip over some of it. Older kids will love reading through it and reading all the facts, or having them read to them. She also complained that they were close up but I think that adds to the appeal. There are plenty of animal books with pictures of the animals in their entirety. This is about eyes, and they're pretty cool to look at up close! There is a ton of information in this book but it's all given in just the right doses for me, without cluttering up the book with text. The photos are the stars, and the narration is just the right mix of educational and fun. I even learned some things! Well recommended.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

This alphabet book is presented in a way that is adaptable to different ages. Each page/letter is an animal and we learn a bit about its eye or sight in general. As an additional gem, we get one sight-related idiom on each page. I appreciated the wide range of animals but some of the facts were a bit of a tangent. Ultimately you could learn a lot about eyes/sight from this selection. Instead of the random interspersed pages to fill the page count, I wish those had been used at the end to give extra info/resources to learn more.

The illustrations of this book are great, but unfortunately the book as a whole was a bit lacking. There was a lot of information, which was great but there's a bit of a disconnect with the age group that would be reading an alphabet book and the types of animals that were featured. Many were unfamiliar, even for me, and a lot of the eyeball pics were so close up there was little context to the animal they belonged to.
We won't be reading this one again, the kids were losing interest midway.
Many thanks to Charlesbridge Publishers and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

What a wonderful idea. You get some ideas about evolution - why might the alligators heads be on top of the head, oh my so many scallop eyes..
I thought camels were masters of low water but they also have adaptations of eyelids to become the ships of the desert.
Who knew there were so many eye idioms. Great choice int rying to match the idiom in some sense to the animal.

I was provided with a free ARC copy of this title courtesy of #netgalley, Jerry Pallotta and the publishers in return for an honest review.

This is an alphabet with a difference. It is best suited for children learning literacy late as it deals with images aimed at older children. I really liked how it searched for rather unknown creatures and demonstrated their eyes, providing useful facts about the creature and the types of eyes they have. The photos were well chosen and the book probably appeals to children between the ages of 5-10.

This would be a great learning resource in a child's bedroom. My 4 and 6-year-old both enjoyed the book for different reasons and I suspect we will read it multiple times.

A solid 5/5

Review to come May 5th to blog/goodreads.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

How could I resist this book? Animals? Eyeballs? Come on through, bring it to momma! Haha. Sorry, I just really love books about animals (well, as soon as they start talking I am out *looks at fantasy novels*).

This book is all about the ABC on animals! We get a close-up (or closer-up) on the eye of an animal fitting the letter with a fun/pretty illustration, but that is not all! This book also gives you facts about the animals eyes. For instance an eel has camouflaged eyes and do not have movable eyelids! Or did you know... that giant squid's eyes are as a big as a a basketball *shocked face*. The facts are all interesting and I love that they were added. I thought this would be just an ABC featuring animals and their eyeballs so this adds a whole lot of more to the book!

I loved the animals picked. It was an interesting bunch of animals! Not always the standard animals one may see in ABC books. I loved seeing animals like Indris make their way to the pages, but also loved seeing Night Crawlers, Quolls, Uakaris.

Next to getting the letter (both in capital and normal) and the animal and information about the animal, we also get sayings + explanations. For instance: "To have stars in your eyes means that you want to be famous." I am not sure how I feel about the sayings, I mean, I came here for the ABCs with animals and eyeballs, so I am a bit on the fence about it.

The art (at least it looked like art) was pretty good. Not always, but 90% of the time I loved it.

All in all, if you are looking for a fun ABC book and want to learn more about animals and eyes, be sure to pick up this book!